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SERMONS AND ESSAYS 



REV. SUMNER R^MASON, D. D. 

SELECTED AND EDITED 
BY 

REV. ALVAH HOVEY, D. D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE NEWTON THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE. 



WITH A SKETCH OE THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OE DR. MASON, 



BY 



Rev. O. S. STEARNS, D. D., 

PBOF. OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION O. T. IN NEWTON THEOL. INST. 



CAMBRIDGE: t 
Printer at tije l&tiwattre $ress, 



AND PUBLISHED BY 

MRS. SUMNER R. MASON. 

1874. 



*\ 



3X U 3 7> 3 

*W5Tf 




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

Mrs. Sumner R. Mason, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



All rights reserved. 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS. 

» 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH vii 

SERMONS. 

SERMON I. 
The Permanence op the Word 1 

SERMON II. 
The Once Delivered Faith 11 

SERMON III. 
Contending for the Once Delivered Faith 17 

SERMON IV. 
The Obedient able to know the Will of God .... 27 

SERMON V. 
God the Same in the Old Testament as He is in the New • . 36 

SERMON VI. 
The Old Testament reveals Salvation 46 

SERMON VII. 
The Worth of Man 55 

SERMON VIII. 
Sin necessary in a Moral System 65 

SERMON IX. 
The Imputation of Adam's Sin .72 

SERMON X. 
The Law of Providence towards the Wrath of Men ... 82 

SERMON XI. 
The Duty op Sinners to make them a New Heart .... 94 

SERMON XII. 
The Sinner's Inability to come to Christ 103 

SERMON XIH. 
Christ in the Old Testament 113 



iv Contents. 

SERMON XIV. 
Christ the Object of Worship 123 

SERMON XV. 
Christ the Object op Worship 134 

SERMON XVI. 
Only the Name of Jesus saving 14C 

SERMON XVII. 
How Jesus spake , 158 

SERMON XVIII. 
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Ground of Hope . .168 

SERMON XIX. 
No Condemnation to Believers . . 176 

SERMON XX. 
The Trial of Faith 185 

SERMON XXI. 
The Service of Christ not hard . . . . . . . .195 

SERMON XXII. 
Christ's Sympathy with his People . 205 

SERMON XXIII. 
The Truth the Instrument of Sanctifi cation 215 

SERMON XXIV. 
The Fact of Regeneration 223 

SERMON XXV. 
The Nature of Regeneration . . . ... . . 230 

SERMON XXVI. 
The Fruits of Regeneration 239 

SERMON XXVH. 
What is the Holy Spirit 1 ? 247 

SERMON XXVIII. 
The Convincing of the Holy Spirit 257 

SERMON XXIX. 
Resisting the Holy Ghost 267 

SERMON XXX. 
On Grieving the Holy Spirit ........ 276 

SERMON XXXI. 
Danger of Falling 288 



Contents. v 

SERMON XXXII. 
The Two Great Certainties of the Gospel 298 

SERMON XXXIII. 
The Parable of the Pounds 308 

SERMON XXXIV. 
The Lost Condition of the Heathen and God's Method of sav- 
ing them .... 320 

SERMON XXXV. 
What is that to thee ? - . . - ..... 366 

SERMON XXXVI. 
Mansions in Heaven 346 

SERMON XXXVII. 
The Perpetuity of the Sabbath * . . 357 

ESSAYS. 
The Penalty of Sin 369 

Griffin on Divine Efficiency . . . . . . . . 385 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Sumner Red way Mason was born in Cheshire, Berkshire 
County, Massachusetts, June 14, 1819. His ancestry was 
English. Three families of the original stock, representing 
three distinct religious tendencies, immigrated to America, at 
three different times. John Mason, the Puritan, came to this 
country in 1630. He settled at first in Massachusetts, and sub- 
sequently in Connecticut. George Mason, or, as he was better 
known, Colonel George Mason, was a member of the English 
Parliament ; but after the battle of Worcester in 1651, when 
Cromwell defeated the royal army, he escaped in disguise, came 
to this country, and settled in Virginia. From him sprang the 
southern Masons. " None of them," says Hon. John M. Ma- 
son, " ever settled north of Mason and Dixon's line." Samson 
Mason, the direct lineal ancestor of our sketch, left England for 
America about 1650. He was an officer in Cromwell's army, 
a radical and a Baptist. He settled in Dorchester, Mass., then 
removed to Rehoboth, and ultimately, for " conscience' sake," to 
Swansea. According to Baylies, he was one of the original 
settlers of that town, but Backus puts his settlement there at 
a later period. Before his removal from Rehoboth, he had as- 
sisted in building the Baptist meeting-house in Swansea, for 
which he was summoned before the authorities of Plymouth 
Colony, fined fifteen shillings, and warned to leave the jurisdic- 
tion of the colony. So far as these families were concerned, 
the old issues of Roundhead and Cavalier brought by George 
and Samson to the country of their adoption, continued to exist 
in their descendants. Two hundred years passed away, with the 
moulding and modifying influence of republican institutions, but 
in the recent struggle between freedom and slavery, the seeds 
sown in Norfolk and Rehoboth bore their legitimate fruit in the 
antagonisms of the South and the North. 



viii Biographical Sketch. 

The family of which Samson Mason was the head, was quite 
eminent in the early history of the Baptists in New England. 
Of his sons, Isaac was a deacon of the second Baptist Church 
in Swansea ; Joseph, during his ministerial life, was its pastor, 
and three of his grandsons, sons of Pelatiah Mason, were pas- 
tors of the same church at different times. " When all North 
America," says Backus, " was ceded to Great Britain, a church 
was formed out of this church, with Nathan Mason as their 
pastor, and they went and settled at the head of the Bay of 
Fundy, but after some years they removed back to New Eng- 
land, and most of them went and settled in Berkshire, in the 
Massachusetts." It is here we find Pelatiah Mason, the imme- 
diate ancestor of the subject of this sketch, and the head of the 
clerical branch of the family. In the quaint and scriptural 
family record, the line of descent runs thus : " Sumner Redway 
Mason was the son of Eddy Mason, the son of Brooks, the son 
of Russel, the son of Pelatiah, the son of Samson." 

His father, Eddy Mason, was a deacon of the Baptist church 
in Cheshire, a church formed from Elder John Leland's church, 
"principally on account of his open communion views." He 
was a farmer, with a good general education, a close student 
of the Bible, and a man of decided convictions. While pos- 
sessing a large measure of that charity which " suffereth long 
and is kind," no consideration of expediency could turn him aside 
from principle. He was always ready to avow and to defend. 
He was an exemplary Christian, and commanded the esteem of 
the church and of his fellow-citizens. He married Matilda Red- 
way, daughter of Deacon Joel Redway of Lanesboro', a man 
who himself suffered much for conscience' sake. She was a 
woman of earnest piety from her youth, but being exceedingly 
perplexed with doubts and f e ars, she did not publicly profess 
Christ until the meridian of her life. The issue of this mar- 
riage was ten children : five sons and five daughters. Freeman 
E., now dead, became a physician and a Professor of Anatomy 
and Surgery in the Medical College of Ohio. Jane, now Mrs. 
James M. Haswell, has been for many years a beloved mission- 
ary in Burmah. Alanson P., now District Secretary of the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society, and Sumner R M 



Biographical Sketch. ix 

entered the ministry. Of the ten, Alanson P. and Mrs. Has- 
well alone survive. 

For a memoir of the early life of Mr. Mason, the material is 
very scanty. In April, 1826, his parents removed from Chesh- 
ire to Penfield in the western part of New York. In August 
1828, his father died, leaving a widow with a large family in 
a land of strangers. Her purpose was to keep the family to- 
gether and train them up under her own care. " From this pur- 
pose," writes her son Alanson P., " she could not be turned, 
though it cost her many a severe struggle. In 1830 it pleased 
God to bring four of the children into his kingdom, thus adding 
helps to our mother's religious influence. But unforeseen 
changes followed this happy event. I felt it my duty to leave 
home and study for the ministry. My oldest brother who had 
been studying medicine for a number of years, settled in Cin- 
cinnati, and Sumner, who was much given to reading and study, 
decided to secure a liberal education. His oldest brother in- 
vited him to make his home in his family, and push forward his 
studies as best he could. He accordingly taught in Cincinnati 
some years, and pursued his classical studies under Eev. Prof. 
Asa Drury, as a private teacher. His brother, the physician, 
being skeptical in his tendencies, exerted at this period an influ- 
ence upon Sumner, which in respect to religion was anything 
but favorable." 

Having made the requisite preparation, Mr. Mason entered 
Yale College in 1838, and pursued the studies of his class about 
two years, leaving New Haven in 1840. This sudden break 
in his collegiate course was caused by the change in his life- 
purpose, which occurred at this time. Hitherto, he had been 
aided pecuniarily by his brother, the physician, but in the year 
1840 he became a new creature in Christ Jesus, and decided 
to give himself to the ministry, in consequence of which the 
support of his brother was withdrawn. The circumstances at- 
tending this change are exceedingly suggestive, as an index to 
the character of the man he became. He had been accustomed 
to worship with the Baptist church in New Haven. The pul- 
pit of that church, at that time, did not please his taste, nor 
satisfy his intellectual cravings. He was poor ; and the slight- 



x Biographical Sketch. 

est pressure upon his purse could be used as an excuse for chang- 
ing his place of worship. He accordingly wrote to his elder 
brother Alanson, a brother to whom his soul was ever knit like 
that of Jonathan to David, for advice in the matter. He said, 
" If I go to the Congregationalist meeting, I can have a free sit- 
ting and hear sound sense from the pulpit. If I attend the Bap- 
tist meeting, I must hear the brawling Roberts. I have no 
money to spend thus." This Mr. Roberts had been his pastor 
at Penfield, N. Y., and was an earnest, successful revivalist. His 
brother wrote back a kind letter, advising him to remain where 
he was, and promised to defray the expense. A few weeks 
elapsed, when he wrote to the same brother, " I have followed 
your advice, and the 4 brawling Baptist ' has led me down into 
the water." He united with the First Baptist Church in New 
Haven, March 1, 1840. " While with us," says the clerk of 
that church, " he was active in the church and in the Sunday- 
school, and our recollection of him is that of a brother beloved 
by all who enjoyed his acquaintance." The act, however, and 
the decision in the act, all his friends will recognize as charac- 
teristic of the man. Nevertheless, it was an act which involved 
a sacrifice which none can appreciate except those who have 
been suddenly dashed in their intellectual aspirations. He was 
obliged to leave college, and supply the deficiencies in his edu- 
cation as best he could. He accordingly taught a year or more 
in Cincinnati, and six years in Nashville, Tenn., pursuing at the 
same time, so far as possible, the studies of his class. How hard 
he wrought in this direction, is well explained in his own lan- 
guage. In a letter to his sister, Mrs. Haswell, referring to a 
period shortly after his marriage, he says, " You ask me what I 
am doing ? I reply that I am a teacher of Greek and Latin, 
have two schools, male and female. Yet I preach, or rather 
talk occasionally. My ideas of a teacher, especially of ad- 
vanced pupils in the classics, are such, that he who discharges 
them faithfully, has but little time for anything else. I now 
have classes in Nepos, Virgil, Ovid, Cicero's Philosophical 
Works, Homer, Xenophon, etc. Add to these, classes from Col- 
burn's Mental Arithmetic to Conic Sections, and you will see 
that I must prove recreant to my trust, not to be all the time 



Biographical Sketch. xi 

laboring for my school, directly or indirectly. This has increased 
my desire to throw off every trammel, and give myself wholly 
to the ministry ; and now I have this end in view, and the 
prospect of its speedy accomplishment." The letter from which 
we have quoted has no date, but it seems to have been written 
from Huntsville, Alabama, where he went to teach after leaving 
Nashville, and after the greatest crisis in his life was passed, — ■ 
his determination to enter the ministry. He had previously 
been married to Miss Mary Jane Dibble of Buffalo, N. Y. This 
event occurred November 10, 1844. She was the daughter of 
Colonel O. H. Dibble, a native of Bennington, Vt., an enter- 
prising, energetic citizen of Buffalo, who amassed an immense 
fortune prior to the financial crisis of 1837, when he suffered, 
with so many others, a terrible reverse. In 1852, leaving his 
family in Buffalo, he went to California, where he spent the re- 
mainder of his days, dying at the age of 77. " He died in the 
fullness of time, and not unprepared for the great change. He 
was no ordinary man. His long life was illustrated by many 
high evidences of ability, and his talents were rewarded with 
distinctions of which any man might be proud." He occupied 
many prominent positions in civil and political life. He was 
specially interested in the Theological Institution at Hamilton, 
N. Y., giving it a fund, the interest of which has aided many 
poor students who are now preaching the gospel, or have been 
" called up higher." His wife, the mother of Mrs. Mason, was 
born in New Brunswick, N. J., and was " a woman of strong 
practical sense and of ardent love for her children." 

To his wife Mr. Mason owed, not only the happiness of a 
Christian home during the years of their wedded life, but very 
emphatically the decision he reached at this critical juncture of 
his history. When the question of devoting himself entirely 
to the ministry pressed itself upon his conscience, his early 
skepticism returned with unwonted energy. Doubts respecting 
the reality of his piety, doubts as to the divine authority of the 
Scriptures, doubts tending to materialism, plunged him into 
their miry pit, and brought him to the verge of despair. The 
body could not resist the mental agony. He was seized with a 
dangerous fever, and came down to the border of the grave. 
But God, through the ministry of his wife, " cured him," as 



xii Biographical Sketch. 

he was wont to say, " entirely cured him." " To her," he says, 
" I owe my restoration from the toils of infidelity." " Who 
knows," he writes to her some years afterwards, " what might 
have been the result of my reckless skepticism, but for the gen- 
tle yet firm remonstrance of such a wife ; for her guardian watch- 
fulness and prayerful entreaties during that dark, dark night oi 
bitterness and woe which surprised me in Huntsville ! I was 
already on an awful precipice, ready to stumble headlong to 
destruction at any moment. Recklessness, skepticisms, and an 
utter isolation from every human being in interest and sympa- 
thy, were driving me with fearful rapidity over the most fearful 
breaker of life's ocean. I thank God for my wife." 

Such is the furnace out of which the pure gold comes. His 
determination was now fixed. The ministry became his joy and 
delight. He had been licensed to preach by the Baptist church 
in Nashville, of which Rev. R. B. C. Howell, D. D., was pas- 
tor, September 7, 1844. The conflict, of which we have spoken, 
came after that approval. Now he pursued his work as a teacher 
and gave himself also to theological studies under the direction 
of Dr. Howell, mingling with his teaching and studies an occa- 
sional supply of neighboring pulpits. Having completed his 
preparations, he spent parts of the years 1848-49 in different 
places in New York, as a supply and as a candidate, but being 
from the South, he was looked upon suspiciously, and the open 
door did not present itself, until June 24, 1849, when he re- 
ceived a call to become the pastor of the First Baptist Church 
in Lockport, N. Y., which he accepted. He was ordained over 
that church, August 22, 1849. The sermon was preached by 
Rev. V. R. Hotchkiss, D. D., now of Buffalo. 1 The charge 
was given by his brother-in-law, Rev. J. M. Has well, D. D., 
now of Burmah, the right hand of fellowship by Rev. S. M. 
Stimson, and the prayer of ordination by Rev. Mr. Sawyer. 
He undertook this new labor amid grave difficulties. The 
former pastor of the church, Rev. Elon Galusha, for a long time 
a marked and influential man in the Baptist denomination, be- 
came a " Millerite," and drew off from the First Baptist Church 
a section composed of u fully one half of the membership," to 

1 His brother, Alanson P. Mason, D. D., was to preach the ordination sermon, 
but was taken sick on the way, and was not able to be present. 



Biographical Sketch. xiii 

which he was preaching when Mr. Mason assumed the pastoral 
office. The church was in a demoralized condition. It was 
divided, disheartened, and disposed to lean solidly upon the 
wisdom and influence of the new pastor. The church was 
found to be so weak, — a weakness resulting from differences of 
opinion and the lack of discipline, — that a coup d'etat in 
Baptist policy became necessary. The members of the church 
decided to disband, and a new church was formed and recog- 
nized, composed of more homogeneous elements. Mr. Mason 
became their pastor. He healed dissensions. He guided the 
affairs of the church with discretion. The divine blessing ac- 
companied his labors. And when he resigned he left a thriv- 
ing, vigorous church. One who was a prominent and intel- 
ligent actor in these scenes, referring to Mr. Mason's executive 
ability, says : " I have very distinct and abiding impressions of 
the trying circumstances through which we passed at Lockport. 
The dignified Christian spirit which he manifested under these 
trials, and the rare common sense with which he met and 
mastered them, impressed me with the fact that he was no 
ordinary man." The esteem which he had secured from other 
denominations as well as in his own, during his residence in 
Lockport, is so beautifully expressed by the following letter, 
addressed to him when leaving for his new field of labor in 
Cambridgeport, Mass., that we take pleasure in quoting it. 

Lockport, N. Y., Feb. 26, 1855. 
Rev. S. R. Mason, — 

Dear Brother : The near approach of the time of your intended 
removal from our village, and your consequent withdrawal from the 
immediate and close intimacy which we have enjoyed with you as min- 
isters of these churches, has prompted us, while reviewing and cherish- 
ing the memorials of our intercourse, to express to you in this delib- 
erate way the great satisfaction we have had in your society, our high 
appreciation of your unvarying courtesy and friendship, our regret that 
we are to be deprived of your presence, your assistance, and your coun- 
sel, and our earnest desire that you and yours may be blessed in all 
your ways, and that you may be abundantly successful in your efforts 
to preach the gospel of Christ, and to make full proof of your ministry. 

With the prayer that God may bless you in your work and bestow 
on you an abundant reward in heaven, we give you our parting saluta- 



xiv Biographical Sketch. 

tions and the right hand of fellowship, and subscribe ourselves, your 
brethren in the ministry, 

William C. Wisner, Pastor ofPres. Church. 

H. L. Dox, Pastor of Lutheran Church. 

S. Stiles, Pastor of Methodist Episcopal Church. 

E. W. Kellogg, Stated Supply, 2d Ward, Pres. Church. 

Edward W. Gilman, Pastor of Congregational Church. 

He began his labors as pastor of the First Baptist Church in 
Cambridge, March 4, 1855. It was a large, intelligent, and in- 
fluential body. He at once found himself associated with min- 
isters of broad and refined culture. He measured himself with 
others, and determined to excel. How well he succeeded, let 
the body which grew and strengthened itself under his minis- 
trations, let his brethren in the ministry who universally respected 
and loved him, let the denominational societies which sought 
his counsel and confided to him their most sacred interests, let 
the city of his adoption, which honored him by intrusting to 
him her choicest educational institutions, testify. We could 
easily fill pages with resolutions of esteem passed by various 
organizations, civil and religious, when death snatched him away, 
had we space. He was a man who could not be hid ; a man 
whose very appearance expressed character, character which 
expressed power. 

The sixteen years of his faithful service in Cambridge were 
brought to a sudden and mysterious close. As if God in his 
own way was making him ready for a higher service, his last 
sermons to his own people, August 13, 1871, were upon themes 
pertaining to the heavenly home to which he aspired. In the 
morning of that day he preached upon " the characteristics of 
the heavenly world," from Rev. xxi. 23 : " And the city had no 
need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it : for the 
glory of God did lighten it ; and the Lamb is the light thereof." 
In the afternoon he preached upon " the necessity of being right 
in character to secure life's highest good," from Luke xi. 35 : 
" Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not 
darkness." The next Sabbath he spent with his friend Rev. 
Nelson J. Wheeler, at Newport, R. I., when the subjects of his 
discourses, both morning and afternoon, and the topic on which 



Biographical Sketch. xv 

he spoke in the evening prayer-meeting, were a fitting summary 
of his public life-work. In the morning he preached from the f a- 
miliar text, w Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy la- 
den, and I will give you rest," enforcing clearly and emphatically 
the all-sufficiency of Christ for human salvation. In the afternoon 
he preached from the words, " It doth not yet appear what we 
shall be," drawing from the text the theme that " the future of 
the child of God is not revealed by his present," and showing that 
in his physical, intellectual, and moral nature, man's " highest 
possible conceptions must fall far below the reality." The way 
to eternal life and the bliss of eternal life, the sum and substance 
of all his preaching, were thus his last pulpit utterances. In the 
evening, at the close of the meeting, as was his custom, in a 
few well-chosen, terse sentences, he set forth the positiveness of 
God's Word. It is a revelation to be implicitly believed ; not 
to be explained to the satisfaction man's vain curiosity or man's 
proud reason. He noticed Paul's answer to the jailer, " Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," and 
pressed upon the impenitent the positive command to believe on 
Christ, with the equally positive assurance of salvation as the 
result of implicit faith. Then with great solemnity charging 
his hearers to remember these words as his last counsel to them 
should they never hear his voice again on earth, — a fact the more 
remarkable as he was careful to avoid all hackneyed expres- 
sions, — he closed the meeting with these words, " The positive- 
ness of the gospel." A fitting close to a spiritual ministry ! It 
was a halo of celestial radiance encircling the setting sun ! The 
next Sabbath he had entered upon the heavenly life, and was 
enjoying the results of a gracious positive revelation from God 
for the rescue of sinful man ! He did not deem it so then ; but 
an infinitely wise God had timed the occasion, the service, and 
the hour. 

For the next Sabbath, he had arranged an exchange of pulpits 
with Rev. J. C. Foster of Beverly. Singularly, he seemed to have 
some premonition as to the result of that exchange. Several 
times during the week previous, he remarked to his wife that 
he did not want to go. He appeared worried about it, and 
when the parting came on Saturday evening, August 26th, he 



xvi Biographical Sketch. 

literally tore himself away from his family, repeating the ex- 
pression, that he wished he had not agreed to go. It was, how- 
ever, to be so. He left Boston for Beverly, at twenty minutes 
to eight, ten minutes after the regular time, and at the Revere 
station, the train, being behind time, was run into by the ex- 
press train for Portland and Bangor, hurrying to death Dr. Ma- 
son and more than a score of others. 

It is not for us to dwell upon the horrors of the scene, nor 
upon the grief of his family and people, when the news reached 
them that he whom they loved was no more. His body was 
found on the top of the locomotive, apparently not much bruised. 
His watch had not stopped. He was not recognized by any one 
present, but was identified by his name in his pocket-book. 
His remains were borne to his home the next Sabbath after- 
noon, and on the Thursday following, funeral services were held 
at his house and at his church, conducted by Revs. N. J. 
Wheeler of Newport, R. I., R. H. Neale, D. D., of Boston, J. 
G. Warren, D. D., of Newton, and by Professors H. Lincoln 
and A. Hovey of the Newton Theological Institution. His 
body was entombed in the cemetery of Mt. Auburn. During 
the services the city of Cambridge honored him with the emblems 
of mourning. In fact the sea of upturned faces in the church, 
the large body of clergymen of various denominations, and the 
representatives of many public institutions then present, the 
flags of the city at half-mast, the tolling of the city bells, all 
emphasized the language of the prophet, " All ye that are 
about him bemoan him, and all ye that knew his name say, 
How is the strong staff broken and the beautiful rod." On the 
next Sabbath, a tribute to his memory was given to the church 
and congregation which had so long enjoyed his ministry, by 
the writer of this sketch. 

As writes a friend, " Untimely his death seems to us, but we 
know it was not. It was God's time. Whatever was the reck- 
lessness of man, and however criminal were the human agents 
in that disaster, and however just the public indignation toward 
them, the providence of God was over all, in all that scene of 
death and suffering. The servant of God is immortal until his 
work is done. It was the summons of his Master that called 



Biographical Sketch. xvii 

him home. It is affecting to know, that in his satchel was 
found after his death, a manuscript sermon on the text, " Thy 
will be done." He was intending to preach it the next day. 
The theme of his discourse was the duty of submission in all 
things to the will of God. May we not receive it as his farewell 
message to his family, to his church, to his friends everywhere ?'' 

At his death he left a widow and seven children, for whom 
his people at once made generous provision. A great man had 
fallen in Israel. They loved him as such ; and they affection- 
ately availed themselves of the privilege of caring for those so 
dear to him who had so earnestly and unselfishly cared for them. 

It is no easy task to delineate the characteristics of such a 
man as Dr. Mason was. By the foregoing sketch of his life, it 
will be seen that providential circumstances tended to beget in 
him self-reliance, independence of thought and action, and a 
hardihood of character, which, unless purified and modified by 
divine grace, would have made him as a man unlovely and un- 
attractive. His whole nature would have been granitic. A 
fatherless boy, thrown upon his own resources at a period of life 
when he needed the tenderest and most careful culture, subse- 
quently compelled to force his way through difficulties to secure 
an education and reach the goal of his ambition, we naturally 
expect him to become cold and unsympathetic. And yet, from 
the testimony of his sister, Mrs. Haswell, it appears that from 
his earliest childhood, while he was peculiarly shy and sensitive, 
his tenderness of heart was apparent to all. A bird's nest was 
in no danger from him. His choicest companions were his older 
sisters. " Healthy and active, and like most boys full of fun 
and mischief, he was not like some in delighting in cruel sports. 
He joined his sisters in their in-door amusements as heartily as 
they did him in out-door sports." " He was a dutiful son. 
Only once he attempted to resist his mother's will, after she 
became a widow, and then, as he related it himself years after- 
ward, 4 she brought him to with the rod.' " In his intercourse 
with his brothers, he had a habit which his later friends will 
recognize, of putting the query, when any bold assertion was 
made, " Well, how do you know ? " While, however, neither 

in his early life, nor in the culture of the " schools," was there 
b 



xviii Biographical Sketch. 

much to give delicacy and finish to his character, a study of the 
elements of his power and success, leads us back to his lineal 
inheritance, and causes us to see that in the catholic yet uncom- 
promising father and the self-distrusting yet conscientious mother, 
was that rare combination of strength and beauty, massiveness 
and tenderness, which made up the man. 

This was not indeed the first impression, either in private or 
in public. It was as the " strong staff," the emblem of power, — 
power to support or power to crush, — that he was at first 
recognized on the street or in the pulpit. He seemed born as 
one to command. He seemed as one who loved the arena of 
strife, as one of those who snuffed the battle from afar, and felt 
himself equal to his foe. There was something imperial in his 
very bearing, in his crisp remark, in his bold assertion, in his 
tenacity for the precise statement of a principle, in his deter- 
mined adherence to a position when once it had been taken. As 
the " beautiful rod," shooting out of the ground, with its buds 
clustering thickly upon it, welcoming the dew and the shower, 
rather than the thunder and the lightning, more sensitive to an 
east wind or an autumnal frost than to a cyclone or a tornado, 
none knew him, except those who experienced the wealth of his 
affections around the hearth-stone, the gentleness of his spirit 
in the sick-room or at the bed of death, and the few intimate 
friends to whom he sometimes opened his real nature and who 
were allowed to see him as he really was. An incident oc- 
curred when on a visit to his friend Rev. Mr. Wheeler, then resid- 
ing in Skowhegan, Me., which illustrates this side of his char- 
acter. " While walking along one of the streets," says Mr. W., 
" we met a little child who was crying. The neglected creature 
was anything but attractive in outward appearance. But the 
Doctor stopped and spoke some comforting words as we passed. 
We had not gone far, before the little one cried out ' Mother ! 
Mother ! ' As quickly as though he had been its mother, he 
turned back, went to the child, took it by the hand, inquired 
out its home, and refused to leave it until its friends appeared. 
Then, as we continued our walk, he said, 4 Ah ! that word 
" Mother," when uttered by a child in trouble, touches a tender 
chord in my heart.' This may seem very simple when read, 



Biographical Sketch. xix 

but it was most moving as witnessed." An item in the writer's 
own experience confirms him in the opinion, that this element 
of kindness and loveliness, so generally thought to be deficient, 
was genuine and active. Years ago, when he first settled in 
Cambridge, my own pastorate at Newton commencing about 
the same time, I hesitated to exchange pulpits with him, because 
I had heard that he was stern and morose and forbidding, a 
critic of the critics, a preacher not easily satisfied with the 
pulpit efforts of any one. Through the intercession of a com- 
mon friend, there came a Sabbath when he stood in my place and 
I in his ; and at the close of the services of the day, in conversa- 
tion with my wife, it appeared that he was as afraid of me as I 
of him. And then I learned the fact, confirmed by many other 
proofs, that down deep in his soul was the tender shoot press- 
ing its way up to the surface, to be exposed to zephyrs and 
rough winds and biting cold, exquisitely sensitive to the ameni- 
ties of life and to Christian courtesies. Then I learned that 
the strong shepherd's staff, ready to beat off foes, and to defend 
friends, was held by a hand which trembled lest the blow might 
do even an imaginary injury. He often lamented that his lack 
of self-demonstration prevented his being appreciated in his 
true character. Really he was as catholic as the air we breathe. 
He was bold to defend or to rescue. He was often timid and 
shrinking lest he should crush what he would foster. 

11 In deeds and motives untold by the tongue. 
By chisel uncarved, by poets unsung, 
The Beautiful lives in the depths of the soul.'" 

This genial element of his nature is still further illustrated 
by his deportment in his autumnal vacations. During the later 
years of his life, he was accustomed to spend them with his 
friend Mr. Wheeler, among the forests of Maine, or the lakes 
and mountains of northern New York. " He had a natural 
taste," writes Mr. W., " amounting to a passion, for life in the 
forests. When worn down with work, his letters used to ex- 
press a longing for this favorite mode of recreation. And when 
autumn found him in the wilderness, he entered with the spirit 
of a boy into its varied scenes of hunting, fishing, boating, and 
sight-seeing. Everything interested him, even the unavoida- 



xx Biographical Sketch. 

ble hardships of such a life. No one enjoyed more keenly 
every ludicrous incident that enlivened the passing days. His 
hearty laugh over them was contagious. Our evenings in camp 
were spent in recounting the incidents of the day, and rehears- 
ing mirthful stories and witty sayings, when our rounds of 
merry laughter would wake the echoes from the neighboring 
cliffs. Our conversation would often take a more serious turn, 
and some theological question would be started or some topic 
of Christian experience would be discussed, when the Doctor was 
peculiarly happy, familiar, and suggestive. Never was he more 
instructive and interesting in his preaching than on his vacation 
Sabbaths with the groves for God's temple, and the sons of the for- 
est for his auditory. They are Sabbaths never to be forgotten." 
The same elements of character marked his piety. It could 
not be otherwise if they had distinguished the man, for the 
Christian is simply the unrenewed man set right. The old 
nature is started in a new and pure direction when it is " begot- 
ten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
from the dead." The spirit of God, the author of the new man, 
takes the man as he is, with his rough qualities and his amiable 
qualities, and moves him forward to the fullness of Christ. 
This new man is to become Godlike. He is to be filled with all 
the fullness of God ; but this fullness, which in reality is nothing 
but purity of heart and life, technically called holiness, is sim- 
ply the development of the new life given him, which takes 
under its supervision the ruling characteristics of the old life, 
modifying and subduing the hurtful and self-destructive. To be 
a Christian, is to possess an enlarged and divinely directed man- 
hood. The ambition of the Christian is to attain the stature of a 
being in whom " mercy and truth have met together, righteous- 
ness and peace have kissed each other." Power and love, justice 
and benevolence, are the united elements in the being with whom 
he would enjoy perpetual companionship. A nature which 
would feel hypocrisy in himself and others, as sensitively as 
our Lord did that of the Pharisees; a nature which would 
respond as quickly to the look of need, as did our Lord to the 
diseased woman who touched the border of his garments ; a na- 
ture which would incorporate into itself the Sermon on the 



Biographical Sketch. xxi 

Mount and bathe itself in the sweet influences of our Lord's 
intercessory prayer ; a nature which feared not man, but feared 
and loved God, because it was pervaded with and regulated by 
the Spirit of God, the great Helper of man ; a nature strong to 
do and tender to feel ; to do all good things and feel all pure 
things, — this is the ideal of the new man in Christ Jesus. 

It was this ideal which Dr. Mason sought to make actual in 
his piety. From early life he had been the child of conflicts 
over religious questions. At one time we find him skeptical, 
almost a stiff doubter ; at another a sincere inquirer and on 
the verge of belief. Now he throws off prayer ; then he is 
earnest in his supplications. The crisis in New Haven, when 
he passed into the power of an endless life, and the crisis at 
Huntsville, when he was lifted from the depths of despair to 
the firm rock of his ministerial purpose, both present the antag- 
onism of a stern will with an honest faith. And when faith won 
the victory, so strong was his conviction of sinfulness, so domi- 
nant seemed the old depraved heart, so crucifying was it at 
times to rule his spirit and possess his soul in patience, com- 
paring the actual with the ideal, the language of Paul was 
never too strong for him, " Not as though I had already attained, 
either were already perfect ; but I follow after, if that I may 
apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ 
Jesus." While with bold Peter, he would say to himself, " Giv- 
ing all diligence, add to your faith, valor ; and to valor, knowl- 
edge ; and to knowledge, temperance ; and to temperance, pa- 
tience ; and to patience, godliness ; and to godliness, brotherly- 
kindness ; and to brotherly-kindness, charity," he craved also 
with the humble Paul, " the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
ance, against which there is no law." 

The manifestations of his piety strongly confirm us in the 
belief that such was his ideal of the Christian life. No one 
ever heard him pray who did not feel that he honored God, 
and walked with Him ; that he stood in awe of Him ; and yet 
approached lovingly near to Him. He never prayed in ruts 
nor by forms. He had a petition to present, and it was offered 
in the meekness and submissiveness of a child. The writer 



xxii Biographical Sketch. 

once heard him utter but three sentences in a public prayer, 
and yet it was far from flippancy or irrelevancy. It compre- 
hended all that needed to be said. It bore us to the throne of 
all mercy, for the reception of all mercy. Nor did any one 
ever hear him preach who did not feel that the Scriptures were 
his ultimate appeal, that to them he brought every emotion of 
his soul as the crucible which should remove the dross and clar- 
ify the gold. God Himself, with whom he loved to dwell alone 
in his study and in the woods, and God's Word, comprehensive 
in its scope, yet minute in its requirements, massive in its struct- 
ure, yet entering into the thoughts and intents of the heart ; 
God the great God, and yet the incarnate God, his law and 
his gospel just like Himself, was his conception of a true life 
which he would attain himself, and urge upon others. Hence 
his zeal for integrity in Christian conduct. Hence his anath- 
emas upon public sins. Hence his tenacity for the minuter 
matters of life, and the avoidance of even the shadow of un- 
christian influence ; not to ride rough-shod over public opin- 
ion ; not for the sake of eccentricity ; not for the pleasure 
of having his own way ; not to present to the world, a puritanic 
type of character in the offensive sense ; but that through the 
strength and beauty of that God who works within us " both 
to will and to do," earth might resemble heaven, and man be 
holy and without blemish. The language of Job, with refer- 
ence to his own noble purposes, expresses Dr. Mason's deter- 
mination with reference to his Christian character ; " Till I die, 
I will not remove mine integrity from me : my heart shall not 
reproach me so long as I live." 

As was the man, so were his theological beliefs. Very 
few men whose theological training has not been secured in the 
schools ever systematize their religious convictions. Though 
the doctrines of Christianity may be cordially and confidently 
accepted by them, they generally lie in their minds as " dis- 
jecta membra," fragmentary truths, each a whole in itself. 
The result is, that they put forth each truth as the all of 
truth, push it to an extreme application, distort it, so that it 
loses much of its force as a divinely revealed truth. Their 
theology, if such it may be called, is a one-sided, inconsistent 



Biographical Sketch. xxiii 

theology, totally unlike the mind of God who is so emphat- 
ically one. Their utterances are mere dogmatisms. They 
are heart-explosions. What is said on one doctrine is es- 
sentially denied or contradicted in the discussion of a kindred 
doctrine. Their preaching and their writings resemble conglom- 
erate granite, solid it may be, but full of all kinds of pebbles 
and stones without beauty or order, rather than the homoge- 
neous Scotch granite, whose effect upon the eye is uniform and 
impressive as a whole. Their theology is an emotional theol- 
ogy, or an imperial theology, or a didactic theology. It catches 
the ear, warms for the moment the heart, but will not bear the 
light of reason, nor the comparison of truth with truth. It 
can never build up " the church of the living God, the pillar 
and ground of the truth." 

Dr. Mason never allowed his heart to run away with his 
reason. His mind, eminently constructive and self -poised, was 
ever searching for foundations, laying firmly the corner-stone, 
building out and up from that and from that alone. He spared 
neither toil nor time to learn the whole of a subject, look at it 
from all sides, weigh it in the scale of opposing theories or 
modifying truths, and consider it as presented and expounded 
by those who held opposite opinions. He indorsed no human 
authority. He copied no distinguished divine. He loved the 
clear, practical Andrew Fuller, and the theoretical, specula- 
tive, uncompromising Griffin ; but he likewise appreciated 
the golden-mouthed Chrysostom and the imaginative Jeremy 
Taylor. He could learn something from the fierce, hirsute 
South, but he grew stouter under the sway of the princely 
Edwards. He repelled no wind of theological opinion, truthful 
or untruthful, yet standing firmly upon the revealed will of 
God, though, as we have seen, sometimes terribly shaken by its 
stern and sweeping requisitions, as all truth-searching minds 
are, he wrought out from it his own system of belief, solid as 
the hills, beautiful as the sculptured marble. So independent 
was he in his methods of investigation that he always believed 
that it was best for him that he never had received the dis- 
cipline and teachings of any theological school. Unquestion- 
ably, self-dependence begat self-reliance, gave freshness to his 



xxiv Biographical Sketch. 

pulpit utterances and an authoritative control over his people. 
But in almost any other mind, the tendency of such methods 
is to narrowness, positiveness, the attempt at impossibilities, 
especially in the practical application of the teachings of Chris- 
tianity. He mined into the deep heart of God, prayerfully, 
carefully, searchingly mined, and out came the jewel worthy 
of his Master's crown. And how he gloried in showing it in its 
native brilliancy ! How he delighted in bringing out a truth 
in its precise form, in its exact statement, reveling in it as a 
truth of God, putting it in varied lights, so that others might 
see it in its pure beauty, turning it about, side after side, and 
almost impatient because others did not see it just as it ap- 
peared to his own vision ! How the sermons of this volume 
reveal his enthusiasm in exhibiting God's greatness in God's 
goodness, God's sovereignty and man's freedom, God's redemp- 
tion for man's sinfulness, God's authority and man's obedience, 
God's promises with man's fidelity, God's incarnation and 
man's divine nature, God's throne in man's heaven, God's eter- 
nity and man's destiny ! How those last sermons to his own 
people on heaven, and the stern fidelity requisite to reach it, his 
last remarks in his own prayer-meeting on unexpected death, 
and the sermon he intended to preach at Beverly on Christian 
submission, make a sort of summary of his theological opinions, 
so strong, yet so tender, the staff and the rod ! Like the stars 
in their courses, " they all stand together ; not one faileth." 

The same characteristics of power and fitness distinguished 
him as a preacher. With a theology angular, positive, precise 
in its phraseology, there was combined the richness of a ripe 
Christian experience, enabling him to give every man his por- 
tion of meat in due season. He was willing to work for the 
truth, but he longed to have others receive it just as he ex- 
pounded it. He stripped off all disguises. He hated shams. 
He despised cant. He laid the heart bare to the quick, but he 
had a better remedy for healing it than false emotions and 
fanatical ecstasy. He was satisfied with the results he had 
reached by searching the Scriptures, and comparing them with 
his own spiritual life, and he was therefore firm, bold, earnest 
in his pulpit utterances. Hence he magnified his pulpit, and 



Biographical Sketch. xxv 

relied upon his pulpit as the chief power for good. He did not 
ignore pastoral work, but his pulpit was to him God's throne, 
from which, Sabbath after Sabbath, God through him expressed 
his will. He believed in his pulpit as the divinely appointed 
agency to guide and form society, according to the principles 
symbolized in the cross. He wanted God to dwell among men, 
and sincerely believed that if they would listen to God's word 
and practice it as thus enunciated, their highest weal would be 
secured. He expected and demanded that men should search 
for God in the sanctuary, rather than be sought after and 
taught in their homes. Perhaps he trusted to the power of his 
pulpit too much. But he deemed himself set apart as a preacher 
of the gospel and a defender of the gospel, and he would have 
men come to him, as they did to Moses, as the expounder of 
the law, rather than go out after them and constrain them to 
come to the house of God. He would have a magnetism in the 
pulpit, like that which Christ manifested in the synagogue of 
Nazareth when " the people were astonished at his doctrine : 
for his word was with power : " like that of Paul in Antioch of 
Pisidia, when the people besought him that " these words might 
be preached to them on the next Sabbath." The following 
note from Professor Edwards A. Park of Andover, shows by 
the impression which his pulpit efforts made even upon a 
stranger, how worthily he executed his purpose. " I spent a 
Sabbath," he says, at Cambridgeport, " and heard Dr. S. R. 
Mason preach in the year 1871. I shall not soon forget the im- 
pression made upon me by his services. I recognized in him 
at once a firm conscientiousness. He obviously spoke what he 
deemed himself bound to speak. His conscience made him 
bold. His sermon was like the voice of a trumpet. It was an 
instructive sermon, and all his services indeed were fitted to 
build up his church in sound doctrine. I was impressed by 
the solidity of his thoughts and words and ways. In these 
times of sensationalism it is refreshing to hear such a man. I 
inwardly resolved to hear him often." 

Dr. Mason's sermons, however, were not merely strong and 
convincing. They were fitted into the needs of his people. 
Among numerous instances so well known to his people, two as 



xxvi Biographical Sketch. 

spoken of by Mr. Wheeler will explain our meaning. " I re- 
member," he writes, " his relating to me the occasion of his two 
best sermons. While visiting a mother, who had just been bereft 
of a little child, he was trying to console her with the thought 
of Christ's sympathy ; that He not only felt for her, but also 
felt with her. Her reply was, 4 How can He feel with me, 
when He never had a little child to lose ? ' This question sug- 
gested to him the sermon he preached the next Sabbath from the 
text, 4 For we have not a high-priest who cannot be touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities.' At another time, after 
preaching a sermon on the severity of the Christian conflict, as 
he was leaving the house, he overheard an impenitent person 
saying, 4 Well, if the Christian life is so hard and trying in its 
experience, I think I will not try it.' The text immediately 
flashed upon him, 4 Take my yoke upon you and learn of me : 
for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The next Sab- 
bath he preached from it." The writer heard Dr. Mason but a 
few times, but judging from what he has heard, the one domi- 
nant characteristic of his preaching was its immediate, decided 
impressiveness. Everything was sacrificed for an impression 
which would be felt and remembered. His people easily under- 
stood what he meant, knew that the theme was logically and 
scripturally sustained, and felt that it was designed for them, 
then and there. Few congregations were ever so elaborately 
indoctrinated. His pulpit was a critical place for a novice. 
Many among his listeners knew that they could teach him the 
way of God more perfectly. Dr. Mason's style was clear, his 
argument compact and well illustrated, and his appeals true 
and clinching. He did not enter a labyrinth, which may lead 
everywhere and end nowhere, but he went first himself into the 
temple of God, into the holy place through the veil, into the 
most holy place, where, filling his golden censer with celestial 
fire and receiving the incense from the great high-priest, all 
aglow himself with the beauty and glory of the place, he came 
forth with an offering worthy of the acceptance of all. His 
ministry was a ministry to bring manhood into kinship with 
Godhead. His ministry was for babes, only as babes under his 
nurture might attain to the stature of the fullness of Christ. 



Biographical Sketch. xxvii 

To develop such, he had thoughts suited to all. Sometimes 
they were a nugget of gold in the form of a costly promise, and 
he heaved it out for his hearers to trade upon many days. 
Sometimes it was a boulder of quartz rock, as a huge proph- 
ecy ; and he crushed it himself and taught others to become 
muscular by showing them how to crush out the choice ore. 
Sometimes he brought a little golddust, as a story or a parable, 
and put it into the hands of the child and told him how to 
make it pay in soul- wealth. And many times he brought the 
fine gold of a clarified doctrine, meeting the needs of all, and 
proving itself " profitable for instruction in righteousness. " 
Whatever he brought was worth something. Myriad-sided was 
the gospel he proclaimed ; equally so was it in its applications. 

" Simple, grave, sincere, 
In doctrine uncorrupt ; in language plain, 
And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, 
And natural in gesture : much impressed 
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, 
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds 
May feel it too." 

As a pastor Dr. Mason was a man of broad conceptions and 
noble aims. Gifted with unusual executive ability, he brought 
all his energies to bear upon the prime object of his public life, 
namely, to " watch for souls." He could give himself to the 
culture of one soul, search out the secret of its special needs, 
and put his individual stamp upon that one, as was evident from 
his power over young men when entering business, and more 
especially over those who were being educated for the ministry. 
His influence upon such persons possessed the power of a fas- 
cination. They felt him in every decision of life. They rev- 
erenced him as a father. He engraved his own religious 
convictions upon them, and stirred them to an enthusiastic con- 
secration of their being to their high calling. He felt his 
responsibility in this direction and wielded his influence with a 
passion. To train a man, to impress upon him the idea of the 
greatness of manhood, was his chief ambition. He loved to 
take hold of a man whom he could guide and direct. This 
passion expressed itself, not only upon those of his own flock, 
but upon men wherever he found them. Says Mr. Wheeler, 



xxviii Biographical Sketch. 

from whom we have quoted so frequently, " One thing that 
was noticeable in his forest tours was the interest he felt in the 
leading men of the settlements we visited. In these remote 
settlements, there is usually one man whose will is the law of 
the community. He interested himself especially in such per- 
sons, and endeavored to impress them with a sense of their re- 
sponsibility, as the leaders of others. We once passed a Sab- 
bath in a settlement situated thirty miles in the wilderness, and 
nearly sixty miles from any church. As usual, we preached 
during the day. It was near midnight before the Doctor ap- 
peared in his bed-room ; and then he stated that he had been 
passing the evening with the landlord — the recognized leader of 
the settlement — and had tried to show him, not only his personal 
responsibility to God, but also his peculiar responsibility to 
those around him. And during a stay of several days, he be- 
came so deeply interested in this destitute community, that he 
offered to raise $200 or $300 annually towards the support of a 
suitable missionary among them." In all his movements for 
the spiritual thrift of his people, in their public enterprises, 
such as that of the erection of a new house of worship, and in 
the raising of funds for benevolent purposes, he laid his hand 
on men, exemplified what he sought by his personal sacrifice, 
and by a sort of magical influence carried out his designs. What 
the First Baptist Church of Cambridge is to-day, its noble posi- 
tion among the churches of the denomination, is due very largely 
to his personal power over its individual members, the wealthy 
and the strong. 

Nor did he neglect others, less influential than these. His 
letters to his wife when she was absent from home, and he 
remained at work, are filled with sketches of the condition 
and wants, temporal and spiritual, of the poorer members of 
the church ; in some instances almost a full biography ; show- 
ing his perfect familiarity with their position, his thorough 
sympathy with them and his plans for their comfort and hap- 
piness. As an instance of his happy method of quenching 
jealousies among the less influential of his people, and as giv- 
ing a true insight into his soul, we quote his own language 
addressed to his wife, in the freedom of private correspondence. 



Biographical Sketch. xxix 

We simply suppress names. He says, " I must give you an 

account of a good thing I got off on old Mr. . You 

know that they all think that I am as proud as Lucifer, and 
that I stand aloof from them (i. e., the family). Well, I met 
the old man on the sidewalk, and shook hands with him. Said 
I, 4 1 have not seen you often since you came back.' 4 Haven't 
you,' said he, 4 I have seen you.' 'Where?' said I. 4 On 
the street,' said he, 4 a half a dozen times.' This was so said 
as to imply that I was unwilling to speak to him. 4 Have 
you ? ' said I, 4 then you have treated me very badly, to pass 
me by without speaking to me.' You ought to have seen his 
face. 4 Do you think so ? ' said he. 4 Yes,' I replied, 4 1 don't 
like to have my friends pass me in that way on the street.' 
4 Well now,' said he, 4 1 didn't know that. I thought you 
did.' " 

But it was his church, as the body of Christ, to which he 
gave his strength. His ideal of a church of God was lofty and 
grand. He believed in her as the great missionary force for 
the weal of the world. Examination for admission to her 
membership was always searching and discriminating. The 
discipline of members, when necessary, was prompt, decisive, 
and kind. It was his day-dream and his night-dream, 44 Oh ! 
that this people may be found walking in the truth and in 
love." He knew that much self-abnegation would be demanded 
from him and from them, to reach the realization of his concep- 
tion. He felt his own deficiencies. He prayed over them and 
wept over them. But a church which is an emblem of that 
glorious church, 44 without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing," 
was a reality which so dazzled him and ravished him, he could 
not repress his longings that for once he might see on earth a 
type of the heavenly antitype. He knew that manly natures, 
which are sternest when great emergencies arise, are usually 
endowed with the gentlest affections, as the softest down is 
found upon the eagle's breast. He knew that 44 soft piety 
enters at an iron gate." And though he sometimes failed, and 
none felt the failure so keenly as he, yet as the leader and guide 
of his people, their teacher and brother, his endeavor was to 
44 feed his flock like a shepherd ; to gather the lambs with his 



XXX 



Biographical Sketch. 



arm and carry them in his bosom." How well he executed his 
purpose, was manifest in the pride with which he ever spoke 
of his people, and in their pride in him as one whom they 
gloried to praise and follow. What complete control over them 
he possessed, may be shown by a little incident he related to a 
friend during the latter part of his ministry. He was an 
enthusiast for congregational singing. He had labored persist- 
ently, to secure good singing and effective singing as an in- 
spiring part of public worship. At one time his organist did 
not seem to be of the same mind, and often perplexed him. 
On a given Sunday, when entering his pulpit, he found a 
young Congregationalist minister who had come there by mis- 
take. The young man seemed embarrassed, and Dr. Mason 
kindly offered to exchange with him, and let him remain where 
he was. The offer was accepted. Dr. Mason had selected his 
hymns, and left them for the young man to use if he chose. 
He returned to his own church just as the people were singing 
the last hymn. As the organist played the tune previous to 
singing, he noticed that a common metre tune was played 
while he knew that he had selected a long metre hymn. He 
supposed, at first, that the young man had selected anothei 
hymn, but as the singing went on, he found that the tune did 
not fit the hymn, and that they were all confused. During the 
interval between the first and second verses, Dr. Mason walked 
up into the pulpit, and said, " Now, let us sing the Doxology, 
in Old Hundred." They sang it with a will. The organist 
was conquered. 

Such was the resolute, ruling spirit of the man. Such is the 
power a pastor can wield over a people who love and reverence 
him. Dr. Mason deserved to be so regarded by his people. 
His labors in their behalf were untiring. His devotion to their 
highest interests was unselfish. To serve them, and to stimu- 
late them to secure a broad, full, completed Christian life was 
his constant ambition. " Calais, when I die, will be found 
written on my heart," said Queen Mary on her dying bed, 
when mourning the results of the capture of that ill-fated city. 
Cambridge, so distinguished for its social, intellectual, and 
religious culture, and especially the First Baptist Church in 



Biographical Sketch. xxxi 

Cambridge was on the heart of Dr. Mason, when, u in the 
twinkling of an eye," he passed from the cares and conquests 
of earth to the rest and joys of heaven. 

Dr. Mason was a sincere friend, an earnest, sympathetic 
Christian, a truth-searching theologian, an effective preacher, a 
wise and judicious pastor. To his family, he has bequeathed a 
life full of sunny memories. By his people, his name will 
always be honored. In his denomination, he will long be con- 
sidered one of its choicest ornaments. By all who knew him 
he will be esteemed as a Prince in Israel. 

The Rev. Dr. Neale of Boston, who labored side by side with 
Dr. Mason, during his pastorate at Cambridge, has furnished 
the writer with personal reminiscences so unique and genial, 
that they would be mangled by quotations from them. They 
are therefore appended. 

DR. NEALE'S TRIBUTE. 

It was my privilege to know Dr. Mason quite intimately 
from the time he became a pastor in this vicinity. He was in 
every respect a strong man, — strong in body, mind, and heart. 
His personal presence was commanding. His erect manly form, 
the forward bent of his head, his thoughtful, earnest look, gave 
you at once the impression that he was a man of more than 
ordinary power. His bearing at first, and Avhen his counte- 
nance was in repose, seemed somewhat haughty and cold, but 
those of us who knew him, can never forget the simplicity of 
his spirit, the warmth of his friendship, the tenderness of his 
heart. As a husband, father, brother, friend, he was one of 
the kindest of men, genial among his ministering brethren, and 
ever accessible and affectionate to the people of his charge. On 
all occasions, however, he was dignified and courteous. It 
may be said of him, as of Dr. Sharp and the late Baron Stow, 
that he never said or did a foolish thing. Putting on no airs 
of saintship, it was yet natural with him to be serious, as con- 
scious of the grave responsibilities that rested upon him as a 
minister of God. 

Dr. Mason, though far from being morose or puritanic, was 



xxxii Biographical Sketch. 

yet strict in his morality. He avoided the very appearance of 
evil. The injunction of the Apostle, " Whatsoever things are 
true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, what- 
soever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and 
if there be any praise, think on these things," was practically 
exemplified in the life and teachings of our departed brother. 
He would not sanction any infringement upon the sacredness 
of the Sabbath, and refused to preach to a company of soldiers 
who proposed to attend his church, unless they would promise 
not to ride in the Sunday cars. Dr. Mason was a very sincere 
man. He could be sportive, and relished a joke, and certainly 
was at times capable of the keenest sarcasm, but he was careful 
not to exaggerate, or allow anything to escape his lips that 
should unnecessarily hurt a brother's feelings. He always 
meant exactly what he said. He hated deception in every 
form. He was no fawning sycophant. He never by word or 
act sought the good opinion of persons whom he thought un- 
worthy, and never appeared to be friendly unless he was so in 
reality. 

Dr. Mason had a high sense of his official duties. He was 
confided in as a man of sound judgment, and accordingly 
placed in many positions of public trust, not only in his own 
denomination, but in the community where he dwelt. These 
he filled with scrupulous care. As a member of the School 
Board at Cambridge, as well as of the Executive Committee in 
Boston, he was conscientiously present at the meetings, and 
acquainted with all the questions that came before them, and 
felt himself individually responsible for whatever vote he gave. 
Our dear brother was emphatically strong in the grace that is 
in the Lord Jesus. His type of piety was characteristic. He 
made no mere show or pretense. His was no stereotyped ex- 
perience, nor a second-hand faith. He came to the original 
fountain and thought for himself. His doctrinal sentiments 
were decidedly evangelical. He was evidently converted by 
the grace of God, into the great and glorious truths of the New 
Testament. They were written on his heart by the Holy 
Spirit, and grasped by his strong intellect as the undoubted 
teaching of inspiration. 



Biographical Sketch. xxxiii 

All these things combined made him decidedly one of our 
ablest preachers. It was good to see and hear him in the 
pulpit ; you were sure of being instructed. He understood the 
things whereof he affirmed, and never failed to bring forth 
beaten oil into the sanctuary. He believed, and therefore 
spoke. What, after all, gave the greatest impressiveness to 
his preaching was the unselfish and lofty motive by which he 
was obviously influenced. There was no effort at display, no 
attempt to be eloquent, or even profound. He thought not of 
himself or what the people might think of him. He aimed 
only to communicate the message intrusted to him, as an am- 
bassador of Heaven. These are some of the things, deeply 
written on my memory and heart of the late Dr. Sumner R. 
Mason. He was a good man, and a good minister of the Lord 
Jesus, watching for souls as one that must give account. 

The day after the death of Dr. Mason, the Hon. Henry S. 
Washburn composed the following tribute to his memory, 
which we are allowed to insert in this sketch : — 

SUMNER R. MASON. 

'Twas at a golden wedding feast, 

Just one brief waning moon ago, 
I marked how lightly Time had touched, 

Thy manly form now laid so low. 

Age leaned upon thy strong right arm, 

And children prattled by thy knee, 
While crowned with benedictions came, 

Thy words of wisdom warm and free. 

And moving thus among thy flock, 

In all thy manhood's port and pride, 
I felt how greatly blessed were they 

Who shared the love of such a guide. 

Oh, vanity of human trust I 

When cloudless seemed thy favored sky, 

The gathering tempest hurled its blast, 
And all our hopes in ruin lie. 



xxxiv Biographical Sketch. 

God shield the hearts which bear to-day 
The burden of so great a woe ; 

Where but to Thee, O Love divine ! 
Can they for help and succor go ? 

Yet, while 1 mourn, my early friend, 
That thou hast passed away so soon, 

'Twere well, among thy gathered sheaves, 
In Autumn's golden afternoon, — 

Thy work all finished and complete, 
To hear the Master bid thee come, 

And from the heights of Zion shout, 
The reaper's paean, Harvest home ! 

So, casting all our rief on Him 
Who ever doeth all things well, 

We'll heap the turf upon thy breast, 
And breathe for thee our last farewell. 



SERMONS. 



SERMON I. 

THE PERMANENCE OF THE WORD. 

Is. xl. 8, end. — The Word of our God shall stand forever. 

HERE, as in several other places in the Bible, the per- 
manence of the " Word of God " is contrasted with the 
transitoriness of men upon the earth: "All flesh is grass, 
and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field : 
the grass withereth, the flower fadeth : because the Spirit of 
the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The 
grass withereth, the flower fadeth : but the Word of our God 
shall stand forever." 

The Apostle Peter refers to this, and kindred passages, 
when he says that the Word of God is that by the instrumen- 
tality of which the soul of man is regenerated ; and that it 
is this that is preached unto men for their salvation by the 
preaching of the gospel. The Apostle thus identifies the 
Word of God of which the Prophet speaks, with that word 
which is extolled in the Psalms as converting and purifying 
and saving the soul ; and with that of which our Saviour 
speaks when He prays, " Sanctify them through thy truth : 
thy Word is truth." 

The " Word of God " of which the Psalmist and the Prophet 
wrote, was that portion of the Old Testament which had been 
given up to that time. The " Word of God " of which our 
Saviour spoke, was all of the Old Testament, and so much of 
the New as He had given to his disciples. The " Word of 
God " of which the Apostle Peter spoke, embraced yet more. 
It took in all that holy men had spoken by the Holy Ghost, 



2 The Permanence of the Word. [Serm. I. 

not only in the Law and the Prophets, but in the New Testa- 
ment also. 

But the words of the prophet, though they had immediate 
reference to what had been already written in his day, were 
equally applicable to all that should be thereafter written by 
the inspiration, of God. For it was as true of the Word of 
God that was yet to be written, that it should stand forever, 
as it was of that which had already been written. It was 
true of it all, that not' one word of it should fail. It should 
stand forever, firm and unchanged. Each vanishing age, and 
each departing generation, should leave it as they found it. 
Each dawning age, and each coming generation, should find 
it as their predecessors left it. 

To one who reflects on the transitoriness of man, and all 
that pertains to him, on the earth, — and who does not thus 
reflect at this period of the year? — and feels the sadness 
that such reflection is calculated to produce, there is relief 
and encouragement in this thought. Time will dissolve all 
human relationships, sweep away all human interests, and 
undermine all earthly human supports ; but it is not in time, 
nor in eternity, to destroy the Word of God ; nor to alienate 
man's inheritance in it ; nor to undermine it as the founda- 
tion of his hopes, and the pledge of his immortality. This 
thought, brought home to the mind, makes of man something 
higher and nobler than flesh ; makes him superior to all 
things earthly ; lifts him out of the sphere of change and de- 
cay, and imparts to his own being a permanence and enduring 
worth, in comparison with which the material universe sinks 
into insignificance. The thought, brought home in humility 
and faith, enables one to say : " Though all flesh is grass, and 
all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field : and as 
the grass it withereth, and as the flower it fadeth ; yet be- 
cause the Word of our God shall stand forever, and all my 
hopes, and all the interests of my immortality, are assured by 
it, therefore I myself shall stand with it." 

Your attention is invited to some of the particulars that 
are involved in this general proposition : " The Word of our 
God shall stand forever." 

1. In the first place, every statement of fact which the Word 
of God makes will remain, and be found to be a true state- 



is. xi. 8.] The Permanence of the Word. 3 

ment. The statement itself will never be modified nor an- 
nulled ; and the thing declared will never be proved to be 
false. Each statement will, on the contrary, in the form in 
which it now stands, always convey a truth to the minds of 
men ; and increase by so much their store of real knowledge. 
From the present moment, and onward to the end of time, 
and then during all the ages of eternity, God will stand by all 
that He has uttered, and maintain its verity against all that 
venture to call it in question ; and in vindication of all that 
accept it and rest upon it as true. This much, at least, is 
asserted by the words of the prophet. Nothing less than this 
is involved in the general declaration : " The Word of our God 
abideth forever." 

It follows, therefore, that the time will never come when it 
will be proved that the narratives of the Bible are only fables 
and myths. The past itself is, indeed, a guaranty for the 
future in regard to this matter. Not unfrequently, in the 
past, has this theory of myth and fable been set up against 
the narratives and historical statements of the Bible ; and 
especially against those that must, if they are true, have been 
written by men supernaturally and divinely enlightened ; and 
more especially against all that relate to the working of mira- 
cles. Beginning with the narrative of the creation, and fol- 
lowing on down through all that is set forth as miraculous, 
and through most that is not common to both the Bible and 
profane history, the enemies of the revelation have, at one 
time or another, declared those portions of it to be mere in- 
ventions, and have brought all the resources of great learn- 
ing and great abilities to the task of demonstrating their 
declaration to be true. Almost every department of litera- 
ture and of science has been made to play its part in this 
grand enterprise. Almost every important discovery or the- 
ory in archeology, in the structure of the, earth, and in the 
movements of the stars, has been paraded as a witness against 
the simple statements of revelation. For a time those who 
have thus paraded these things have exulted, and proclaimed 
themselves the victors in the great controversy of the world 
against the Bible ; and for a time its timid friends have feared 
and trembled lest these boastings should turn out to be true. 
But in every instance, when the discovery that was put upon 



4 The Permanence of the Word. [Serm. t. 

the stand as a witness to convict revelation of falsehood, has 
had any bearing whatever on the Bible, it has ended by con- 
firming its truth. Egypt, hoary with an antiquity dating 
back far beyond the earliest historic periods of the world ; 
Assyria, filled with the melancholy memorials of buried cities 
and forgotten nations ; the earth's surface, and the vault of 
heaven, all have been invoked, and the response of each has 
been an unequivocal testimony against those who have called 
them forth. Like the evil spirit which turned upon the sons 
of Sceva the Jew, at Ephesus, when they attempted to exor- 
cise it by the name of Jesus, these witnesses that have been 
invoked to testify against the Bible, have answered : " God 
we know, and his Word we know, but who are ye ? " The 
Bible has remained unscathed. Its friends have been strength- 
ened in their faith. Their confidence in it as the Word of 
God has become firmer and more intelligent and more sus- 
taining. Its account of the creation, and of the beginning of 
human history, has become clearer and more satisfactory. All 
its histories, its miracles, and its revelations, have shown, in 
sharper outline and clearer impression, the seal of truth. It 
has become yet more manifest that the Bible is indeed the 
Word of God. 

From the fact that we are considering, it follows, further, 
that not alone the narratives of the past, but, if we may so 
speak, those of the future, also, will never fail. They will all 
be found ultimately to answer as exactty to the things that 
are yet to be, as does the narrative of the past answer to the 
things that have been. All prophecy will be found in the 
end, as so much of it has been found already, to be prewritten 
history. All prophecies will yet be read as we now read those 
pertaining, e. g., to the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, to 
the destruction of Jerusalem, and the coming of the Messiah. 
The day will come when men will thus look back on all that 
is foretold of the triumph of the gospel in the world, of the 
destruction of Antichrist, and of the Messiah's final coming, 
and the day of judgment. But the same spirit that prompts 
men to attempt to falsify the testimony of the Word of God 
respecting the past, prompts them to deny also its declara- 
tions regarding the future. Hence the class of men that do 
the one, always do the other. They who deny the Scriptural 



Is. xi. 8.] The Permanence of the Word. 5 

account of the creation of the world, e. g., sneer at the pre- 
dicted ending of it. They who deride the account of the be- 
ginning of human history, have no patience with the proph- 
ecy of its termination. They who are sure that God never 
has wrought a miracle on the earth, and that He never can, 
are equally sure that He will never interfere with the present 
order of material things, nor interpose to fulfill the predic- 
tions of his Word regarding them. There are now, as there 
were in the days of the Apostles, " Scoffers, walking after 
their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his 
coming ? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue 
as they were from the beginning of the creation," and will 
continue without ending. But if it is true that " the Word 
of our God shall stand forever." then that which is written 
in that Word as prophecy will yet come fully to pass, and " the 
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the 
which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and 
the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and 
the works that are therein shall be burned up ; " and all that 
is preliminary to this in the prophetic record will have its ful- 
fillment. 

All that has in the past indicated the truth of Scriptural 
history, has gone so far also towards the support of faith in 
the prophecies of the Bible. Hence it is that there never was 
a time when the friends of revelation rested with more confi- 
dence in the certainty that prophecy will be fulfilled than they 
do this day. Never was there a time when they were mani- 
festing their confidence with more firmness. This confidence 
lies indeed at the foundation, and is one of the main sources 
of support and inspiration in all the great missionary en- 
terprises of our age, and in many of the great social and 
governmental reforms that are pushing the world towards its 
millennium. It is because Christians believe that the world 
is to be evangelized, in accordance with the predictions of the 
Word of God, that they engage so heartily in these enter- 
prises, and go on in them from year to year with ever increas- 
ing earnestness, and more and more liberal devotion, notwith- 
standing the errors of rationalism and the cold-heartedness 
of multitudes who falsely bear the Christian name. It is true 
that they are moved in this matter by their loyalty to the 



6 The Permanence of the Word. [Sehm. i. 

commands of Christ, and by their love of righteousness, and 
their intense desire for the salvation of souls ; but connected 
with all these, and supporting them, is the calm and settled 
conviction that the glorious day shall yet dawn on this world 
which is predicted by the Word of God, when the name of 
Jesus shall be known by every nation under heaven, and shall 
become the talisman of salvation to multitudes, from them all, 
that cannot be numbered. In other words, they believe that 
is to be which God has predicted ; therefore they have energy 
and courage and hope, in labors and sacrifices, to bring it to 
pass. 

2. In the second place, the general statement before us in- 
volves the permanency of all the princijiles which the Word of 
God sets forth as true. The time will never come when any 
principle which the Word of God enunciates will have a char- 
acter different from that which is assumed for it, in its enun- 
ciation. That which is set forth as righteous will be found 
righteous ; and that which is set forth as wrong will be found 
wrong ; not only while the world shall stand, but so long as 
the throne of God endures. That which was a right moral 
principle for Adam, and Noah, and Abraham, and David, and 
Paul, and John, is a right moral principle for all men now, 
and will always remain so. Nothing can ever become intrin- 
sically wrong for any man, which was intrinsically right for 
any one of these ; and, on the other hand, nothing can become 
intrinsically right for any man, that was intrinsically wrong for 
any one of these. 

Take, for example, the great fundamental principle of all 
human intercourse, as our Saviour announced it : " Whatso- 
ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them." This, He says, was the principle of human inter- 
course laid down in the law, and insisted on by the prophets. 
It cannot change. It never was wrong to act upon it ; it 
never was right to disregard it, in the dealings of men with 
men. It can never become a false principle of conduct. 
Through time and in eternity it will remain, and men will be 
righteous in their intercourse with each other just as they act 
upon it, and wicked just as they go contrary to it. 

Take again the principle of repentance as governing the 
conduct of the wrong-doer. It never was right for a wrong- 



is. xi. 8.] The Permanence of the Word. 7 

doer not to repent ; it never will be right for him not to re- 
pent. On earth, in heaven, in hell, it is, and always will con- 
tinue to be, wrong for him not to repent. He is under solemn 
obligations to repent. It is a principle inherent in his moral 
being, and required by the very nature of moral government. 
The Bible sets it forth in this light. Nothing will ever change 
its character. No modification of circumstances, no change of 
condition or state, will ever suspend its operation. 

Take once more the principle of faith as the Bible sets it 
forth, making it the grand and indispensable condition of 
acceptable service and of intercourse with God. It was right 
for Adam to have faith in God, and wrong for him not to have 
it. It was absolutely essential to his serving God acceptably, 
and to his remaining in communion with Him. It has been 
the same with all men since his day ; it is the same with all 
men now ; it will remain the same with all men through time 
and in eternity. The principle can never change. It will 
always remain true, that, " without faith it is impossible to 
please God ; " and, therefore, that " he that believeth not shall 
be damned ; and he that believeth shall be saved." 

Take once more the grand principle which the Bible enun- 
ciates in requiring all men to love God supremely. This re- 
quirement is based on the eternal fitness of things. God 
always has been, He is now, and He will forever remain, infi- 
nitely more worthy of love than any and all the creatures 
that are, or that ever will be made. However great in good- 
ness and worthiness any creature is or can become, his good- 
ness and worthiness are limited ; and, when compared with 
God, they are infinitely below Him. It is impossible that this 
difference between God and creatures should ever be done 
away with. God will ever remain worthy of infinitely more 
love than creatures, and therefore the command to love Him 
supremely, which underlies all moral obligations, will never 
cease to be binding ; never cease to be the fittest expression 
of the true relation of the creature to the Creator ; never 
cease to be the governing principle in the conduct of all holy 
beings. 

This fact of the permanence of moral principles, as they are 
taught by the Bible, has in it power to arouse, and to sustain 
in vigorous action, the best energies of the soul now ; and to 



8 The Permanence of the Word, [Serm. i. 

fill it with the sublimest anticipations for the future. It is 
our confidence in the permanence of right that supports us in 
right courses of life, and in labors for the promotion of right- 
eous causes and ends, when everything else, without this, 
would give way, and our energies would become paralyzed. 
Because that which is inherently right will always be right, 
it is worth one's while to cling to it ; and because that which 
is right must ultimately triumph in the government of a right- 
eous God, that which is done for its promotion cannot be labor 
spent in vain. 

There are times in the lives of most earnest-minded men, 
who desire their energies to be rightly directed, when they 
can find almost nothing else but this principle to cling to. 
They would be instantly overwhelmed with despair if they 
were to lose their hold upon it. Within, and without, wick- 
edness seems to bear undisputed sway. All endeavors to sub- 
due it, or to advance the cause of truth and righteousness, 
seem to be like water spilt upon the sand. They vanish away, 
and no fruit appears. The temptation comes upon them to 
give over the seemingly unequal and useless struggle, and to 
fall in with the current that sets in against goodness with a 
force as irresistible as that of the tide when it rolls backward 
to their source all the streams that are striving to gain the 
sea. They would yield to the temptation, and make ship- 
wreck of all their hopes, and of all good enterprises, if they 
could not fall back on the eternal rightness of right, and on 
the consequent certainty of its ultimate triumph. Though 
all that is done for the right seems as feeble, and all that 
labor for it as helpless, as the stragglings of the streamlet to 
pursue its course to the sea against the might of the incom- 
ing tide, yet because they have learned that right remains as 
permanent in its character as the principle of gravity, and is 
ever pressing its way towards its goal, and as certain to reach 
it as are the waters of the rivers to reach the sea, they take 
heart, and nerve themselves anew for the struggle and the 
certain victory. No better illustration of this can be found 
than is furnished by the history of the cause of human rights 
against the cause of human slavery. Both in England and 
in this country, years of most earnest and self-sacrificing 
labors were expended, apparently in vain, before anything 



[s. xi. 8.] The Permanence of the Word. 9 

seemed to be accomplished. All the resources of powerful 
governments, of trade and commerce, of social respectability 
and social degradation, were combined, now in silent and dig- 
nified contempt, now in fierce madness that raged like a tem- 
pest, against the feeble endeavors of a few earnest and hope- 
ful men, full of love for all that was good, but counted and 
treated as the off scouring of the earth. Personal violence, 
despoiling of goods, murder, every form of indignity, mis- 
representation, and abuse became their portion ; yet the huge 
iniquity against which they lifted their puny arms and feeble 
voices, gloated on its prey, and seemed to be entrenched in 
eternal security. They toiled on through years of darkness, 
with no star to light up their way but the star of truth ; with 
no stimulant to their hope but a firm confidence in the perma- 
nence of right ; and even sooner than they had dared to hope, 
they saw the foundations of the system begin to give way, and 
its walls to totter to their fall. Before they could fairly 
adjust themselves to the opening of the new era that they 
themselves had inaugurated, the whole superstructure gave 
way, like the defenses of Jericho before the hosts of Israel. 
Wilberforce, Clarkson, and a multitude of others — many gone 
to their reward, many others yet living — were seen not to 
have toiled in vain. Their confidence in right was not mis- 
placed. Their hopes did not make them ashamed. 

Take this as the precursor and promise of that which is to 
be in the contests of right with wrong, in all its forms on earth, 
and how grand and glorious the prospect ! The millennium is 
sure ! 

Take the confidence in the permanence and the triumph of 
right which these men manifested, and its vindication by the 
silent but mighty intervention of a righteous God, as a type of 
that confidence which is justified regarding all good in the 
government of the Almighty, and what a prospect opens before 
us, beyond the boundaries of this world ! The hour will come 
when it shall be seen that no good deed, no holy aspiration, no 
righteous purpose and endeavor, has been in vain. Each one 
has been a seed, which, though it seemed to die and come to 
nought, has been instinct with eternal life, and is yielding a 
rich harvest for an eternal reward. 

It will be seen that the Word of the Lord has not returned to 



10 The Permanence of the Word. [Serm. i. 

Him void, but it has accomplished that which He has pleased, 
and prospered in the thing whereto He sent it. Nothing that 
it has revealed, as history past ; nothing that it has foretold, as 
history to come ; nothing that it has enunciated as principles 
of righteousness, — will cease to be true. All will endure, — 
revelations, as elements of real knowledge ; principles, as of 
eternal worth and unchanging certainty. 

In nothing, then, I remark in conclusion, can the Word of 
God be trusted in vain. 

1. Its promises will never disappoint any hopes that are built 
upon them. They will all be fulfilled. 

2. Its threatening* will never fail. A threatening is only 
a promise of evil. As every promise of good, so will every 
promise of evil have its exact fulfillment. 

3. No encouragement to goodness, and no discouragement to 
evil, which the Bible holds out, will come to nought. To the 
end of time they will endure. Through eternity they will be 
real. Both alike rest on the assertions of the Almighty. All 
things else may fail. These cannot. " The Word of our God 
shall stand forever." 



SERMON II. 

THE ONCE DELIVERED FAITH. 



Jude 3. — Ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto 

the saints. 

SAINTS is a common designation for believers in Christ. 
The two terms are interchangeable in the New Testament. 
To be a believer in Christ was to be a holy person ; one sep- 
arated from his sins and consecrated to God and his service. 
The invariable effect of true belief in Christ is to bring about 
this separation of the believer from his sins, and this consecra- 
tion of his whole being to God. Hence the designation saints 
was strictly appropriate, and it remains appropriate, as a title 
for all true believers. 

What Jude says in the verse before us, is, that it was need- 
ful, there was a necessity, that he should write to all such 
believers, and exhort them to contend earnestly for their faith. 
But if it was necessary for him to give this exhortation, it is, 
of course, necessary for them to give heed to it and obey it. 
And not only so ; not only is it necessary for them to obey it ; 
they are under solemn obligation to obey it. It is not a matter 
which they may do, or neglect to do at their pleasure. For an 
inspired exhortation is a divine command always. It takes the 
form of an exhortation because it is a fellow man who utters 
it. But because it comes directly from God, and is an expres- 
sion of his will, it is, in its substance, a divine precept. It is 
invested therefore with all the force and authoritj' of a divine 
command. It is binding on the conscience, and must be 
obeyed. 

Let us then give our attention to this inspired exhortation, 
which is also a divine command, and consider what it involves : 
" Contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto 
the saints." 



12 The Once Delivered Faith. [Serm. ii. 

In the first place there is something for believers to contend 
for. There is a Faith. That is, there is something to be 
received, and trusted to, and rested in, and acted on, as unde- 
niable truth, and therefore a reality that can be contended for. 
For the word Faith has this meaning here, as it has also in 
other passages of the New Testament. It means that which 
has been revealed to faith, and which faith accepts and believes 
in. This includes, of course, all the truths of the gospel. All 
the doctrines, and revelations which God has been pleased to 
give us in his Word, and which men must accept, and have 
faith in, simply on God's authority, because God has spoken 
them, — these are the objects of faith. These then constitute 
The Faith. It is a system of revealed truth, by the hearty ac- 
ceptance and belief of which men can be delivered from sin, 
and prepared for the Kingdom of God. A few other passages 
will make this plainer. 

The word is used in this sense in the sixth chapter of the 
Acts of the Apostles, where Luke says, " The word of God 
increased, and a great company of the priests were obedient 
to the faith." That is, they were obedient to the gospel ; 
to its truths, and its commands. Paul uses the word in this 
sense in the Epistle to the Galatians, when he says of the 
churches in Judaea, " But they had heard only, that he who 
persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once 
he destroyed." That is, he preached the truths and doctrines 
of the religion of Jesus Christ. He uses it in the same sense 
again in the First Epistle to Timothy, when he says that " some 
professing science, falsely so called, have erred concerning the 
faith." That is, they had utterly mistaken and failed to ap- 
prehend and understand the truths of the gospel. They have 
not comprehended the gospel system. They are altogether in 
the dark regarding the gospel considered as an object of knowl- 
edge. A system of doctrines and facts revealed to be accepted 
on divine testimony, and on this testimony alone to be under- 
stood and believed. Again he says in this same epistle, " Now 
the Spirit speaketh expressly, that hi the latter times some shall 
depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doc- 
trines of devils." They would leave the gospel ; abandon its 
doctrines ; deny its revelations ; disregard its precepts ; and, 
in place of them, receive for truth the sayings of seducing 
spirits ; and for doctrines the utterances of devils. 



Jl-de3.] The Once Delivered Faith. 13 

These passages show the meaning of the word before us. 
There are many others of a similar character, but there is no 
need of bringing them before you now. These all join with 
our text in asserting the fact, that there is a distinct and well 
known body of religious truth revealed in the New Testament. 
There is a well defined system of religious doctrines and facts. 
There are plainly uttered and inspired truths. These truths, 
these doctrines, these facts, are given by inspiration, delivered 
to the saints. God has spoken them. Because God has spoken 
them they are objects primarily for faith to deal with. God 
has delivered them, once for all, that they might be believed 
and acted on as certainties. In other words, they are not hu- 
man speculations to amuse men and to be admired by them, 
which may be something, which may be nothing ; which may 
be mere speculation and not realities ; and, therefore, if a man 
contend for them he may be contending for a thing that has no 
existence. They are not the results of human reasoning, to 
be criticised, and confirmed as true, or condemned as false, ac- 
cording as they may strike the fancy of those who study them. 
They are not a system of moral and religious philosophy, elab- 
orated by human thought, and human genius, to draw admir- 
ers and partisans ; or to awaken rivalries and stimulate to the 
elaboration of opposing systems. They are none of these ; but 
simply and purely, a revelation. Truths, not primarily to be 
reasoned about, but to be believed in; not to be speculated 
upon, but to be trusted and obeyed ; not abstract and barren 
dogmas for the intellect to think about, but vital principles, 
and divine utterances, for the heart to love, and to be purified 
with ; for the whole soul to cherish and to be saved by. They 
are solemn and substantial realities divinely declared, and to 
be accepted on the authority alone of this declaration. 

God has not left the world to depend on itself alone for a 
knowledge of those things which men must know in order that 
they may obtain salvation ; but which they are powerless to 
obtain by their own wisdom. He has come forth in plain 
speech, the speech of men themselves, and made these things 
known. He has revealed his own being, i. «., and shown to 
men the relation which they sustain to Him. He has lifted 
the veil that hides the future from the unaided eye of man, and 
bidden him look beyond, and see a world of retribution ; and 



14 The Once Delivered Faith. [Serm. ii. 

of eternal consequences, following the present life. He has 
spoken to conscience by his law, and given certainty and defi- 
niteness to all those surmisings of guilt, and those vague but 
fearful apprehensions of rewards to ill deserving, which con- 
science, without the Word of God, always awakens in the soul. 
He has declared his unwillingness that men should be compelled 
to receive these rewards of sin : and He has demonstrated his 
desire that they should be saved. He has pointed out with 
clearness and fullness and precision the provision which he has 
made that they may not perish, but have eternal life. He has 
plainly declared to them the terms and conditions on which 
they may have remission of sins, and be restored to the divine 
favor, and made heirs of heaven. All this He has told them. 
He has made it fully known in the gospel. The doctrines, the 
facts, the threatenings, the commands, the promises, the proph- 
ecies and revelations, that reveal these things constitute a body 
or system of divine truth. They make known all that it is need- 
ful — in order to salvation — that we should know of God and 
his will ; and of the way to eternal life. And this, as it stands 
before us in the Scriptures, but especially in the New Testa- 
ment, is a system for faith. It is by faith alone that it can be 
appropriated ; by faith alone can it be known as truth. On 
this alone, as it is apprehended by faith, depend all our hopes 
and assurances both of the fact of a future state, and of the 
possibility and reality of happiness and bliss in that state. 
Hence this system is our Faith. It is the ultimate standard of 
faith in all questions as to what is truth, either in religion or in 
morals. It is the only ground of certainty, — the certainty of 
faith, — in respect to God, or his will, or his relations to men. 
Hence, again, it is the Faith. It is this system of truth, these 
truths of the gospel, for which, the sacred writer says, the 
saints should earnestly contend. 

2. In the second place our text, in that it speaks of a once 
delivered faith, involves, that this system of truth and doc- 
trines is complete in itself and sufficient for all time. It will 
always remain the only system for faith to receive and rest in 
and act upon. It will not be supplemented by additional rev- 
elations ; nor will it be set aside by new ones. It is a harmoni- 
ous whole, with nothing wanting, and nothing superfluous. It 
is therefore the faith, — the one system of faith, which, in 



Jude 3.] The Once Delivered Faith, 15 

being once given, was given once for all. There was to be no 
repetition of its giving, and no recalling of it after it was given. 

This is the meaning of that phrase which we so often over- 
look in quoting this passage, but which is full of significance, 
" Once delivered." The " Once delivered faith " are the writ- 
er's exact words. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
uses the same word to indicate the fullness and sufficiency of 
the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world ; and that the 
one offering was made at the same time, once for all men and 
once for all ages : " Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, 
as the High Priest entereth into the holy place every year with 
blood of others ; for then must He often have suffered since the 
foundation of the world ; but now once in the end of the world 
hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this 
the judgment ; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of 
many." This once was enough. There would therefore be no 
supplemental appearing of Christ to put away sin. So men 
die once ; it is appointed unto them to die once for all, — and 
once only. There is no return to life again ; and therefore no 
supplemental death. The one death is complete in itself, and 
it is forever. 

Thus it is with the gospel. It has been delivered unto the 
saints once for all. As the expiation of Christ abides the one 
only, but all-sufficient expiation, never to be added to or taken 
from, so the truths of the gospel — its doctrines, its facts, its 
precepts, its terms of salvation, its promises, its threatenings — 
abide forever, the one only, but all-sufficient system of faith ; 
never to be added to, never to be taken from. 

These two truths lie at the foundation of all controversies for 
the Faith. They must be assumed or established before any 
progress can be made. Until they are established all conten- 
tion will be worse than useless. We shall only travel on a 
circle, or float at the mercy of whatever currents of influence 
may prevail around us. First of all we must have it settled in 
our mind that there is something to contend for, something 
real, something certain, something definite, something resting 
on an impregnable basis of truth. We must be sure that what 
we propose to contend for is not a fable, or fiction, or idle 
fancy. 



16 The Once Delivered Faith. [Serm. II. 

Then in the second place we must have it settled that this 
reality, this certainty, is a whole. It is not a part merely to 
be supplemented, perhaps, by the very thing against which we 
contend. If the gospel is not a complete whole in itself, a 
system that cannot be added to nor taken from, then you can 
never know where you stand. If that which stands for a truth 
to-day may become no part of the system, and hence a false- 
hood to-morrow, then you may never be sure that when you 
contend for any part of the system you are not contending for 
a falsehood. And if any part which is to-day taken for a 
whole truth may to-morrow become only a half truth, by rea- 
son of some additional revelation, then you can never be cer- 
tain that the very principle or alleged fact against which you 
are contending, is not that additional revelation that was to 
take away the wholeness from the truth for which you con- 
tend ; and so by making it a half truth transforms it into a 
virtual untruth. 

No ; if we contend for the Faith, — a system of truth to be 
believed and acted upon, — let us be sure that we have such a 
system ; and let us be sure that we know what it is, and why 
it should be believed and acted on. This is precisely what the 
Apostle Peter enjoins upon every believer's conscience when 
he says, " Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts ; and be ready 
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a rea- 
son of the hope that is in you." And that believers might do 
this, he, as well as the other sacred writers, has made provision 
that they may have these things always in remembrance ; and 
give them proof that they have not followed cunningly devised 
fables ; but that they have a sure word on which to rest, and 
for which to contend. 

The two forms of unbelief to-day are, — 

1. That which saps the foundations of all faith by casting 
discredit on the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures. 

2. That which does the same by pretending to supplement 
the Scriptures. 



SERMON III. 

CONTENDING FOR THE ONCE DELIVERED FAITH. 



Jude 3. — Ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto 

the saints. 

TO contend does not mean to quarrel. It does not mean to 
wrangle and dispute ; nor to become angry and show tem- 
per ; nor to be pugnacious and denunciatory. It does not 
mean any of these things. But a man may quarrel when he 
contends. His contention may consist wholly of wrangling and 
disputing. He may contend pugnaciously, and with the bitter- 
est denunciations. And, on the contrary, he may, in some 
causes, contend most earnestly, and yet, the more earnestly he 
contends, the less of quarreling and wrangling will he do ; the 
less of anger and enmity will he have ; and the less of pug- 
nacity and denunciation. It is by no means necessary, because 
a man contends, that he should be anybody's enemy, or indeed 
that he should have an enemy in the world. His antagonists 
may be his best friends ; and even while he contends with them 
he may hold them in the highest esteem and love. 

The word here used by the sacred writer was employed, 
not primarily to set forth quarreling, wrangling, and pugnac- 
ity, but the intense efforts which were made by those who took 
part in the races and public games. Those who contended in 
the races and games were compelled, if they accomplished any- 
thing, to put forth all their strength in intense and sustained 
effort to win the prizes. Those who entered the lists with 
them were their competitors and antagonists ; but not by any 
means necessarily their enemies. So far from this they might 
be their best friends, their own brothers even. 

But the word is also employed to describe the struggles of 
contending armies, and of real enemies, engaged in deadly con- 
flict with each other. It is often employed in this manner. 



18 Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. [Serm. hi. 

But a moment's attention will show you that the idea of hos- 
tility and ill-feeling is not conveyed by the word itself, but by 
the connection in which it stands. It is the connection that 
suggests the enmity and fighting, if there is any. But the con- 
tention is all in the intensity and strenuousness of the efforts 
that are made, whatever may be their spirit or purpose. Hence 
you often say of a man that he contends earnestly, in some 
cause, or in the prosecution of some purpose, where you have 
no thought whatever of his being angry, or of his having en- 
emies arrayed against him. The circumstances in which he 
contends,' the spirit that animates him, and the purpose he has 
in view, determine whether his contention is a quarrel, or sim- 
ply an earnest and determined endeavor to accomplish a de- 
sired result. 

The contention to which the sacred writer here exhorts be- 
lievers may be found in any class of circumstances ; and there- 
fore it may become, not only the strenuous putting forth of 
efforts, without the idea of conflict, but a contest with en- 
emies, — a hand to hand fight, as it were, for victory. One 
who conscientiously, and with loyalty to Christ, contends for 
44 the faith," may find it necessary to contend in both of these 
ways. The circumstances in which he is placed may compel 
him to fight valiantly for the truth, in direct opposition to 
those who are opposing it. He may be compelled thus to take 
the attitude of one battling face to face with foes, — foes to the 
truth, and foes to himself because he is a friend of the truth. 
He may have to meet them on their own ground, and with 
their own weapons ; or, if not with their own weapons, yet 
with such weapons as will effectually parry their thrusts at the 
truth, and destroy their power to hinder it. The friends of 
the 44 Once delivered faith " have often been compelled, by 
fidelity to the truth, thus to meet its foes and contend for it in 
most serious and earnest conflict. But whatever may be the 
circumstances of the contention to which believers are here 
commanded, the fundamental elements of the contention are al- 
ways the same ; and the spirit in which it is to be carried on is 
always the same, namely, loyalty to the truth itself ; and a 
warm and loving desire that men may be saved from all the 
consequences of disobedience by receiving the truth into their 
hearts, and acting on it in their conduct. If we look into the 



Jude 3.] Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. 19 

matter carefully we shall find, that earnestly contending for 
the faith involves three things, prominently ; and these three 
things are separately enjoined throughout the Scriptures. 

1. In the first place they who contend earnestly for the faith, 
must earnestly, plainly, and fully declare the truths that con- 
stitute this faith, — that is, the fundamental facts and princi- 
ples and precepts of the gospel. Oftentimes the full, faithful, 
and earnest declaration of these constitute the whole burden 
of obedience to this divine command. Their very statement 
in this manner sometimes gives them such a triumph over 
ignorances and prejudices, that the gospel becomes at once 
enthroned in their place, and its enemies are transformed into 
friends. This is always the case where ignorance alone is the 
foe against which the truth has to contend. Then the simple 
announcement of the gospel is like the rising of the sun upon 
the face of the world. Darkness is dissipated by his coming ; 
and all nature is flooded with his light. So, where the heart of 
a man is right, and he needs only to know the truth to fall in 
with it and obey it, it is enough that the truth is held up be- 
fore his mind. He grasps it ; is enlightened by it ; and sub- 
mits his whole soul and life to its influence. 

But few are they who are thus ready for the gospel. Few 
are they who have not, at least, self-interest and prejudice 
acting as allies of their ignorance, and bracing them up in 
opposition to some portions of the divine word. This is true 
of vast numbers of the real disciples of Christ. There are 
influences working about them and upon them which hinder 
the claims of the gospel, its principles and its precepts, from 
gaining control of their minds. And then, outside the pale of 
discipleship, there are none who have not, in addition to preju- 
dice and interest, positive disrelish and enmity to the truths of 
the gospel, as allies of their ignorance. They are " alienated 
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them." 
Something more is necessary besides a simple declaration of 
the truth to bring either of these classes to receive and obey it. 
The darkness is shut up within them, and the simple announce- 
ment of the truths of the gospel will no more dissipate it than 
the rising of the sun on the outside of your house will fill with 
light a curtained and blinded room in that house. You must 
draw aside the curtains, and swing wide open the shutters, if 



20 Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. [Serm. hi. 

you would have your room bathed in the light that is flooding 
all the world without. So some power must be brought to 
bear on prejudice, and pride, and interest in the mind of many 
a disciple of Christ ; some power that shall subdue them within 
him, before he will open his soul to the truth on many a sub- 
ject, although this truth is made to abound in plainest and 
fullest announcements to his intellect. And so the washing of 
regeneration must come in and carry away the enmity and car- 
nality of every unrenewed man's soul before he will open his 
heart to that word of prophecy which is as a light shining in a 
dark place. Something more, I repeat it, than a simple an- 
nouncement of the truth is needed in order to give it the 
victory over ignorance and error in such minds. 

Nevertheless, it remains true that no small part of the work 
of those who are called to contend earnestly for the faith, con- 
sists in declaring the faith to just these two classes of minds. 
It must be iterated, and reiterated, until their intellects, at 
least, shall be instructed. This must always be the first step 
in advancing the faith among men. The truth must be faith- 
fully and fully declared to them. Their intellects must be 
flooded with the knowledge of it as the preliminary step to- 
wards the reception of it by their hearts ; even as the world 
without must be flooded by the light of the sun, before you can 
hope to welcome his brightness within, into your opened room. 
In order to this there must, of course, be constant and faithful 
assertions of the truth, in plain and unequivocal announce- 
ments, and in full and accurate statements. This must pre- 
cede and accompany all other methods of contending for the 
faith. 

Hence it was that preaching and teaching were made so prom- 
inent by our Saviour when He sent his disciples forth to their 
great work. " Go teach all nations," He said. " Go ye into all 
the world and preach the gospel to every creature." That is, 
Go and declare it ; announce it ; proclaim it. This command 
took the precedence of all others in the great commission. Hence 
it was that the Apostle Paul, in writing his final letter to 
Timothy, charged him in that most solemn manner, " Before 
God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living 
and the dead, preach the Word : " announce it, proclaim it, 
declare it ; "in season, out of season." And hence, too, this 



Jude 3.] Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. 21 

same Apostle, writing to the Corinthians declares that it pleased 
God by that which some men think to be foolishness, namely, 
preaching the gospel, to save them that believe. That conten- 
tion for the faith which wins men to it, and saves them by it, 
must, therefore, consist largely in giving utterance to it in 
plain, full, and unambiguous speech. In season, and out of 
season, they must plainly declare it, who would earnestly con- 
tend for it. 

2. Contending earnestly for the once delivered faith involves, 
again, an earnest and faithful defense of it against opposing 
errors. The gospel is aggressive. It must make inroads upon 
the ignorances and prejudices and superstitions of the world, 
and triumph over them. Aggression is both its spirit and its 
destiny. When John the Baptist said of Christ, " He must 
increase, but I must decrease," he spake primarily of Christ 
and himself as religious teachers ; and what he said was not 
only a condensation of centuries of prophecy regarding the 
gospel, but a recognition of its inherent aggressiveness. 

But ignorance and error and self-interest will not yield 
their ground without a struggle in any man's mind. They 
will always array their forces for battle, and resist the truth. 
Every community, even the most enlightened, and which knows 
the most of the gospel, cherishes in this manner a vast amount 
of error and false doctrine as real truth. Nay, it can hardly 
be doubted that every man in such a community, even of those 
who love the truth, and intend to conform their thinking and 
feeling and acting wholly to its claims, is in this manner 
under the influence of many a false sentiment and principle 
which he will discover some day or other, and be amazed to 
discover to be utterly opposed to the gospel of Christ. These 
false doctrines and sentiments and principles generally em- 
body themselves into forms of direct antagonism to the teach- 
ings of the gospel ; and nowadays entrench themselves in nom- 
inally Christian systems and societies. Thus embodied, they 
enter into open warfare against the truth. They assail it as 
false, and demand their own enthronement in men's minds and 
hearts in its stead. The enemies of the faith thus meet the 
simple announcements of those who are contending for the 
faith, and by denouncing them as false, devolve on those who 
have made the first announcement, the necessity of standing 



22 Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. [Serm. m. 

by what they have declared, and vindicating its truth and the 
consequent falseness of that which has denied it. Herein is 
the justification of every friend of the gospel for contending for 
its doctrines or principles or precepts in the way of controversy, 
and holding up opposing errors and false teachings before the 
eyes of men, as errors and false teachings. Every false doc- 
trine or precept or principle that holds sway in the public 
mind, or in the mind of any individual, is to be met, first of all, 
by a plain announcement of the opposite truth. If the false 
doctrine or principle or precept gives way before this simple 
and non-controversial setting forth of the truth, it is well. But 
if it holds its place still, and still demands the allegiance of 
men's hearts, and the obedience of their lives, then no champion 
of the truth is faithful to his trust, nor to the souls of men, if 
he does not attack the error, expose its falseness, and do his 
utmost to destroy its hold upon the public, or the individual 
mind. 

All this is to be done, of course, in the spirit of the gospel 
itself. The contest must not be a personal one. It must not 
be conducted for personal triumph or personal gains. It must 
be for the truth. It must be with a sincere desire to save men 
from the baleful effects of error, and bring them into the bless- 
edness of the truth, by bringing them into obedience to Christ. 

While, therefore, this kind of contention for the faith may 
often call for strong language ; and awaken deep feeling ; and 
prompt the utterance of bitter denunciation and keen invective, 
it can never be one of personal hatred and ill-will. It is im- 
possible for it to be otherwise than earnest, positive, even in- 
tense, if carried on by one who loves the faith and appreciates 
the vastness of the issues involved in its acceptance or rejection. 
As he loves the truth he cannot but be deeply in earnest. And 
since love of the truth is hatred of error and falsehood, the ex- 
pression of his earnestness will certainly take the form of 
positiveness, of severe condemnation, and utter rejection. As 
he loves the souls of men, and desires their salvation by the 
truth, he cannot but hold in abhorrence anything that imperils 
their salvation by exalting itself against that truth. Great 
plainness of speech, therefore, will inevitably characterize his 
defense of the truth against error. He will be pretty sure to 
call things by their right names, even though it may have the 



Jura 3.] Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. 23 

seeming of severity, and be veiy unpalatable to all such as are 
blinded by the error, and are taking it for truth. And if at 
any time he has to deal with those who show clearly that their 
defense of error, and resistance to the truth, is willful, and from 
bad motives, and with wrong and selfish ends in view, his 
words will doubtless become stinging and full of indignation. 
It will be hardly possible for him, however, to be justi- 
fied in going, with his imperfect knowledge and his but par- 
tially sanctified heart, as far as the omniscient and holy 
Redeemer went in this direction. It will be rare indeed that 
any one who contends for the faith against its enemies can 
have any right to say to them, as the Saviour said to the 
Pharisees and Scribes : " Hypocrites ! For ye shut up the 
kingdom of heaven against men ; for ye neither go in your- 
selves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe 
unto you : for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, 
and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child 
of hell than yourselves." " Ye fools and blind ! ye make clean 
the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are 
full of extortion and excess. Ye serpents, ye generation of 
vipers ! How can ye escape the damnation of hell ! " It will 
rarely be becoming in any uninspired defender of the faith to 
go as far as an inspired apostle could sometimes safely go in 
personal rebuke and denunciation. Paul could say with holy 
indignation against one who was withstanding the Gospel, and 
endeavoring to turn men away from it, — " Oh full of all 
subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy 
of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right 
ways of the Lord ? " But we are specially told that Paul was 
then " filled with the Holy Ghost," as an infallible spirit of 
inspiration ; and it was not so much Paul that uttered these 
terrible words, as it was the Holy Ghost who was in him, and 
showing him the sorcerer's true character, and guiding him to 
deal righteously with that character. 

These examples are given to show us that indignation 
against the willful enemies of truth and righteousness, and 
corrupt upholders of error and wickedness, may be a holy 
indignation ; and that it is not wrong but right to denounce 
them. At the same time these examples are given us in the 
omniscient and holy Redeemer, and in his inspired Apostle 



24 Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. [Serm. hi. 

when acting under a special and full possession by the Holy- 
Spirit, that we might not presume, in our ignorance and sin- 
fulness and uninspiration, to go at all beyond the bounds of the 
clearest knowledge and the purest charity. Within these 
limits, censure and rebuke of error, and condemnation of those 
who uphold it against the truth, are legitimate. Nay, they 
are required of the faithful disciple of Christ. He may not 
withhold them. Loyalty to his Master, and faithfulness to 
the souls of men, demand them at his hands. 

3. One thing further is involved in earnestly contending 
for the Once Delivered Faith : It must he lived up to. A 
gospel proclaimed, and a gospel defended against false doc- 
trines, can never be sustained before the world, nor made the 
aggressive power that it was intended to be, unless it be a 
gospel carried out in the conduct of those who contend for it. 
And I do not mean only what is commonly meant by this 
trite and almost commonplace remark, " it must be lived up 
to," or " carried out in the conduct." Ordinarily it means no 
more, when it has any definite meaning whatever, — for often 
it is used without any such meaning, — than that those who 
profess the religion of Christ should live good moral lives and 
keep up the forms of their religion. They must not shock 
the public mind by any glaringly inconsistent conduct against 
the commonly received maxims and customs of social morality, 
nor against those that pertain to a religious life. They must 
be honest in their dealings in business ; truth telling, and, in 
a measure, courteous in their intercourse with society ; fair- 
minded and kind-hearted in their domestic relations ; good 
church-goers, and passable covenant-keepers. Beyond these 
conventionalities and decencies of a Christian civilization, 
the words which I have used seldom are supposed to extend. 
But as I use them now they mean vastly more than this. 
They mean the rigid adherence to the teachings of the gospel, 
and the fearless and consistent carrying out of these teachings 
in the life. They mean a constant abiding in its revelations 
as truths ; in its commands as duties, and in its principles as 
the only sure guides in the formation of character and the 
ordering of the conduct. Nothing short of this is a living up 
to the gospel. As a matter of fact, as things are now ordered, 
in almost any nominally Christian community, one may live 



Jude 3.] Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. 25 

what passes for a good moral life, and meet the popular de- 
mands of a Christian profession, and yet by his whole spirit, 
and much of his life, go flatly against many of the plainest ' 
commands of the New Testament ; flatly against some of its 
fundamental principles, and flatly against its whole spirit. 
Indeed it has come about, in many such communities, that 
" standing by the gospel," living up to it, in many of its com- 
mands and principles, will surely bring upon him the charge 
of " narrowness ; " of " bigotry ; " of " one-sidedness ; " of be- 
ing a " hobby rider ; " of " carrying things to extremes ; " of 
" running things into the ground ; " and a multitude of other 
similarly genteel phrases. 

Your own thoughts will supply you with specific examples 
of these general statements ; and I need not dwell very long on 
them. I need not call your attention very much to the absurd- 
ity and uselessness, for example, of contending earnestly in 
words for the Lord's Day as a Christian Sabbath, and then con- 
sulting one's own convenience and pleasure alone in the use he 
makes of this day. I need not dwell long on the fruitlessness 
of contending earnestly for the gospel that claims that "it is 
more blessed to give than to receive," and that makes it the 
glory of the disciple to be as his Lord, " who, though He was 
rich, for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty, 
might be made rich," if one shuts up the bowels of his compas- 
sion, is selfish, grasping, illiberal. I need not linger to tell you 
how absurd it makes one, and how it degrades the gospel and 
gives it over into the hands of its enemies, to contend earnestly 
in words for its teachings, — for example, regarding love to 
one's enemies, and forgiveness of those who have injured him ; 
and yet to seek for revenge and retaliation ; to hold grudges ; to 
cherish roots of bitterness ; and hardness and unfriendliness of 
heart towards an offender. Nor to act the hypocrite by pre- 
tending to believe one to be better than you know him to be, 
— need not trust a thief as though you believed him honest ; nor 
a liar as though you believed him truthful ; yet may be kind, 
courteous, etc. I need not take your time now to say much of 
the destructive influence of that earnest contending for the faith 
which, for example, commends its doctrines and revelations in 
general terms, and yet ignores them, or denies them, in partic- 
ulars ; that, for further example, seeks the salvation of men, 



26 Contending for the Once Delivered Faith. [Serm. m. 

and yet finds nothing from which salvation is to deliver them ; 
that calls on men to repent, and yet, by practical treatment, 
denies that their sins are such as to need repentance, denies 
that except they repent they must surely perish ; that proclaims 
"ye must be born again," and yet, by levity and carelessness 
and utter lack of discrimination, in dealing with their souls, 
with their hopes, and their claims of discipleship with Christ, 
teaches them that " being born again is only an empty phrase, 
having nothing whatever to do with one's prospects for heaven 
and eternal life. I need not linger to say how absurd a man 
makes himself by professing to love a gospel which has saved 
his own soul from death, and without which those who are desti- 
tute of it can never be saved, — a gospel which the Lord Him- 
self has commanded all his disciples to give to all the world, — 
and yet takes no interest in missions, and does nothing for their 
support. I need not stay long to rehearse the folly of contend- 
ing earnestly for a gospel that demands implicit obedience to 
all Christ's words on the part of those who love Him and hope 
in his mercy, and yet in conduct, refusing to submit to those 
words ; whether it be in adhering to great moral principles, or 
in obeying positive precepts. 

May the Lord grant us all grace to contend earnestly for 
the once delivered faith by faithfully declaring it in all ways 
within our reach ; by faithfully defending it against all the en- 
croachments of error and falsehood ; and then, to make all this 
effective, and to give the gospel power, to contend for it by 
standing faithfully up to it, and living it out before God and 
men. 



SERMON IV. 

THE OBEDIENT ABLE TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD. 



John vii. 17. — If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it 
be of God, or whether I speak of myself 

** HHHE doctrine " is that which is spoken of in the preceding 
-*- verse. In the midst of one of the great Jewish festivals 
Jesus went into the temple and began to teach. Some of those 
who heard Him were greatly astonished at the knowledge of 
which He showed Himself possessed, and asked whence he could 
have acquired it; since He had never studied in the schools, nor 
been taught by any of their learned men. In response to this 
inquiry, Jesus answered, that what He taught was. not the re- 
sult of study, nor the fruit of human learning, but a divine 
revelation. For this is the meaning of his reply, " My doctrine 
is not mine, but his that sent me." It was of this doctrine 
that He then added, " If any man will do his will, he shall 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak 
of myself." 

The word will has here an independent force. Our Lord 
did not use it as an auxiliary of the word do. Unless we re- 
member this when we read the passage, we shall take will do 
to be simply the future of do, and quite miss our Saviour's 
meaning. Will is an independent word. It is, moreover, the 
principal word in the sentence, and expresses the main thought. 
What the verse asserts is, that if any one wills, desires, is dis- 
posed to do the will of God, he shall know regarding the 
teachings of Jesus, whether they are of God, or merely human 
assertions, reasonings, and speculations. There is no reference 
to outward and special acts of doing the will of God ; but to 
the disposition of the mind in respect of doing that will. The 
general principle involved is, that if the mind is rightly 
disposed towards God, and wants to do his will, it will 



28 The Obedient [Serm. iv. 

distinguish between that which is divine and that which is 
only human in religious teaching. The doctrine of the text, 
then, broadly stated, is, that one who is rightly disposed to- 
wards the will of God and wants to do it, will easily under- 
stand what the will of God is when He reveals it. 

Let me invite your attention to a few reflections on these 
words of our Saviour thus explained. 

1. In the first place, I remark that our Lord gives us here 1 a 
test, not so much of his teachings as of our own characters. 

As his words are sometimes, but wrongly, taken, they are 
made a test with which men may experiment on what Jesus 
taught ; and so, by experimenting, come to a decision in their 
own minds regarding its character, whether it is divine, or only 
human ; and regarding its claims, whether it is to be held 
worthy of acceptance and obedience, or to be rejected. But 
this was not his method of dealing with men. From first to last 
He bore Himself as one who spake by authority, and who was 
to be heard as an authority. His words were final. He did not 
submit the question, whether or not they were divine or true, 
to any human tribunal. The only question regarding his min- 
istry that He ever submitted to the judgment of men, was a 
very different one from this, and had reference solely to his 
own character, and to the fact that He was a divine messenger. 
He often pointed to his works as proofs of tbese ; and that He 
was, therefore, worthy of confidence as a teacher and revealer 
of religious truth. But this truth itself He did not submit to 
men for them to test ; and, by testing, to decide whether or 
not it was divine or human, true or false. 

In the nature of the case a divine revelation must rest pri- 
marily on the authority of him who makes it. His own char- 
acter and claims to confidence must be sustained by evidence 
submitted to the judgment of those to whom he is sent ; and 
this evidence must be such as will carry conviction to candid 
minds that he is a messenger from God. This evidence, what- 
ever it is, they ought to consider and decide upon : it is their 
prerogative, as well as their duty, to do it. They are qualified 
to do it, if they have intelligence enough to make them ac- 
countable, and are candid. But when they come to the revela- 
tion itself, the case is very different. This pertains, of course, 
to matters of which they are ignorant ; concerning which they 



JohnvH. 17.] Able to know the Will of God. 29 

need information, but winch, for the most part, they could not, 
or would not, discover by the use of their own faculties. They 
have no fitness, therefore, to sit in judgment on it. On the 
contrary, they are fit only to be learners ; and a divine revela- 
tion always regards them in just this light. It is God speaking 
to them that they may hear, and by hearing know truths of 
which they are ignorant, but which He wishes to communicate 
to them ; not that they may put themselves in the attitude of 
experimenters, and judges, to discover and decide whether or 
not his words are truth. 

Our Lord told his disciples plainly that some men would 
receive his doctrines, and that others would not receive them ; 
and that in both cases their action would depend, not on ex- 
periment and the sifting of evidence marshaled for and against 
the divinity of his words, but on the state of their hearts 
towards God. If their hearts were rightly affected towards 
God they would receive his doctrines, otherwise they would 
reject them. Hence He said to the caviling Jews, " He that 
is of God heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them not, 
because ye are not of God." " I know you, that ye have not the 
love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name and ye 
receive me not. If another shall come in his own name him ye 
will receive. How can ye believe, who receive honor one of 
another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only?" 

2. I remark, again, that the truth here declared by our 
Saviour is often brought out in other parts of the Scriptures. 
They everywhere teach that a correct apprehension of divine 
truth depends on the state of the heart, and not on the mere 
exercise of the intellect. They unequivocally declare that if 
there is unfriendliness towards God, and an aversion to doing 
his will, men will not comprehend what He reveals regarding 
Himself and his will, nor will they receive it. Thus the Apostle 
John says, in his First Epistle, " He that knoweth God heareth 
us ; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we 
the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." The Apostle Paul, 
in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, says to believers, " Now 
we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit 
which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely 
given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the 
words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy 



30 The Obedient [Serm. iv. 

Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 
But the natural man receive th not the things of the Spirit of 
God, for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is 
spiritual discerneth all things." The same idea precisely 
underlies the Apostle's exhortation to believers in the twelfth 
chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, " Be ye transformed by 
the renewal of your mind, that ye may learn by experience 
what is the will of God, what is good, well-pleasing, and 
perfect." To the same effect the Psalmist also says, " The 
secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show 
them his covenant." And again, " Unto the upright there 
ariseth light in the darkness." 

It is, therefore, the doctrine, not of our text alone, but of the 
whole Bible, that divine truth is a test of character. When 
men come in contact with it it reveals the state of their hearts 
towards God, and towards the doing of his will. It is as the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has said, " The Word of 
God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged 
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, 
and of the joints and marrow, and is a discoverer of the thoughts 
and intents of the heart." 

3. I remark, in the third place, that what our Saviour here 
declares regarding divine revelations is in perfect harmony 
with what we observe in the communication and comprehen- 
sion of human thoughts. Any man who has thoughts to com- 
municate is most readily and most freely understood by those 
who are friendly towards him, and earnestly desirous of receiv- 
ing his instructions, and being governed by them. On the 
other hand, he is almost sure to be misapprehended, and to be, 
at the best, but partially understood by those who are ill-dis- 
posed towards him personally, and especially disinclined to 
yield to the requirements that he has a right to make of them. 
If you were away from home, and wished to have certain 
things attended to about your house and grounds, concerning 
which you had very peculiar, but very fond, notions, to which 
of your family would you communicate your wishes — to those 
of them who had never manifested any interest in your peculiar 
plans, nor any wish to comply with your will regarding them, 
but, on the contrary, had set themselves, as a rule, against 



John vii. 17.] Able to know the Will of G-od. 31 

your wishes and authority ; or to that one among them all who 
had always taken a deep and tender interest in your ideas and 
plans, because of his interest in and regard for you, and had 
always shown himself disposed to carry out your wishes, and 
to be obedient to your will in all things ? You would say, " It 
will do no good to write to the others. They have no sym- 
pathy with my notions, and no disposition to do what I want 
them to. If I write to them, and require them to attend to 
these matters, they will get only a confused idea of what I 
want. Their indifference regarding my wishes, and hostility 
to my authority, will be sure to prevent their entering into the 
spirit of my plans, and understanding my purpose. I must 
write to that one who alone can understand me, because he 
alone has sufficient regard for me, and enough of the spirit of 
obedience to enter fully into my ideas, and know precisely 
what I want done, and how I want it done. He will be sure 
to understand my wishes in this matter, because of his honest 
and loving desire to carry out my wishes in all things. 

Every thoughtful teacher understands this principle. He 
learns among his first experiences that the pupils who are well 
disposed towards him, and desirous of receiving instruction 
from him, are the ones who most readily catch his exact 
thought, whatever maybe the subject on which he is speaking ; 
while those pupils that are hostile to him, and have their wills 
constantly set against his authority, will receive almost no ben- 
efit from his instructions. 

Which of your clerks, or those in your employ, do you de- 
pend on to interpret or to carry out your most cherished and 
most peculiar ideas ? Is it not that one whose earnest and un- 
selfish disposition to please you in all things has made him 
capable of anticipating many of your wishes ; and has so 
thoroughly identified him with your peculiar methods of busi- 
ness and habits of thought, that a single word, a look, a mere 
hint will reveal more of your mind to him, than the fullest and 
most accurate statements could reveal to others. His thorough 
readiness to do your will, and his manly devotion to your in- 
terests, make him instantly master of your thought, when you 
speak to him of matters in which he has a responsibility to 
you. 

I say that this is in harmony with what our Saviour teaches 



32 The Obedient [Serm. iv. 

us regarding our comprehending divine revelations. The main 
principle in both cases is the same. The willing and obedi- 
ent and sympathizing are able to understand ; the unwilling, 
the disobedient, the unsympathizing, will either misapprehend 
altogether, or get but indistinct, partial, and confused ideas 
from those who are in authority over them, and speak to theni 
from a superior intelligence for their instruction and govern- 
ment. 

But the cases are not wholly parallel. There is vastly more 
in the inability of a sinner to understand the revelations of 
truth which God makes, than there is in the inability of an 
unfriendly and unsympathizing subject in human relationships 
to understand those with whom he is connected in these rela- 
tionships. There is a fixedness of will against the law of God, 
in the mind' of every impenitent sinner, and a deep-seated 
moral aversion to holiness, that blind the intellect and prevent 
the understanding, far beyond anything that happens in the 
relations of any one human being to another. Sin enlists the 
whole being against God. It arrays all the forces of the soul 
against his authority, by enthroning self in the heart in deadly 
hostility to his will and government. The whole being is thus 
brought into subjection to the single principle of opposition to 
the will of God. A fearful moral inability to know God and 
understand what He reveals is the inevitable result. In this 
respect the effect of sin on the powers of the soul is analogous 
to that which the violations of the laws of one's physical being 
bring on the powers of his body. The habitual drunkard and 
debauchee soon destroys these powers, and he becomes unable 
to do with them that for the doing of which they were given 
to him. In like manner sin against God destroys the powers 
of the soul, and makes it unable to do with them that for the 
doing of which God endowed it with them. It ceases, that is, 
to be able to apprehend divine truth and to know God. This 
is the reason why our Saviour declares so emphatically that a 
renewal of these faculties is necessary to a right apprehension of 
spiritual things. As the bodily powers of the drunkard and 
debauchee would have to be renewed before they could again 
rightly perform their functions, so must the moral and spirit- 
ual forces of the soul be renewed before they can perform their 
functions. Hence our Lord declares, " Except a man be born 



John vii. 17.] Able to know the Will of God. 33 

again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Unless this re- 
newal of the soul takes place, that kingdom will remain for- 
ever hidden from his sight. The things of that kingdom are 
the very doctrines, revelations, of which our Lord is speaking 
in the text ; and it was of these that the Apostle was writing 
in the words which we have already quoted : " The natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are 
foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned." 

Nothing, therefore, but that willing mind and obedient 
spirit which are wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost, 
brings a sinner into a moral condition fitted to understand 
divine truth. Nothing else brings him into friendship with 
God, and into harmony with his will. This does bring him 
into this condition, and as soon as he is in it, enmity and re- 
bellion are gone, and the permanent condition of the soul is one 
of submission and obedience and love. It desires to do God's 
will. It is steadily disposed to do it. It has therefore the very 
fitness of which the Saviour speaks, to understand divine things, 
and the ability to know of his doctrines. 

In view of this declaration of our Saviour we see, — 

1. That the failure to apprehend a divine revelation in the 
teachings of Christ is the proof, not of a superior intellect, but 
of a sinful heart. It has always been the fashion for those 
who denied the inspiration and authority of the teachings of 
Jesus, to assume an intellectual superiority to those who receive 
these teachings as divine. They claim that it is because they 
are more gifted, have a higher culture, and keener penetration, 
and more independence of thought, that they are skeptics and 
unbelievers, and do not see the divinity of Christian truth. 
But if Christ is true, their claim is utterly false. What they 
do is not the result of an intellect of superior powers to that of 
others, but of a heart of superior wickedness. 

Of those who make this claim there are two classes. One 
class is composed of those who have some acquaintance with 
the teachings of Christ from actual study of them, and deny 
their claim because of an assumed superiority to Him in actual 
knowledge and grasp of thought. These, however, are few in 
all the world. Few indeed are they who have ever listened 
attentively to the words of Christ, and not been constrained to 

3 



34 The Obedient [Sbrm. IV. 

say, "Never man spake like this man." For the most part 
those who really study the teachings of Christ become conscious 
of his authority, and of the divinity of his words, and are hum- 
bled before Him. They are very few who can, in his pres- 
ence, assume to be his superiors and sit in judgment on Him. 

But these few have given the cue to a vast crowd who con- 
stitute the other class of nominal skeptics. It is from these 
few that the great mass of unbelievers who never gave an 
hour's serious thought to the words of Christ, have learned to 
count it a mark of superiority of mind to profess to regard the 
teachings of Jesus as, at least, only human, and certainly far 
from authoritative. Knowing almost nothing of what the doc- 
trines of Christianity are, having only the most vague and in- 
definite idea of what Christ really said and did, they are wont 
to put on the seeming of great learning, and of great intellect- 
ual acumen, and claim that their learning and their acumen 
have made them skeptics. But few, however, are deceived by 
their claim ! Most men see through the thin covering with 
which both classes seek to give their skepticism a respectable 
parentage. It is easily seen that vanity is in fact the stimulus 
that sustains the profession of skepticism ; while it is clearly 
known to all who really understand what the doctrines of our 
Saviour are, that all the skepticism there is in either class, is 
the fruit of enmity to God, and a determined unwillingness to 
do his will. 

2. The indispensable preparation for the right study of di- 
vine truth is a spirit wholly obedient to the divine s will. With- 
out this men may get at the letter that killeth, but never at 
the spirit of the divine word that maketh alive. No amount 
of intellectual study will do that which it belongs to an obedi- 
ent heart to do. Great learning will not make one acquainted 
with a God whom he hates. An obedient spirit will bring. one 
so into harmony and sympathy with God's will and thoughts 
that he is prepared to learn by study. 

3. There is the best of reason for the first and great require- 
ment of the gospel, namely, that men shall begin the work of 
seeking God by repentance for sin, and reconciliation with God. 
While they cherish sin, and remain at enmity with God, they 
will never rightly discern spiritual things. Their love of sin, 
and opposition to the will of God, unfit them to understand 



John vii. 17.] Able to know the Will of God. 35 

God's character or word. Besides the deadening influence of 
sin itself on the faculties of the soul, there is all the influence 
of prejudice and self-will and aversion to the truth which are 
alone enough to shut up every avenue to the mind against the 
truth. Every religious teacher ought to be thoroughly im- 
pressed with this thought whenever he attempts to impart a 
knowledge of divine things to the impenitent, " Except they 
repent they must perish ! " Until they are disposed to do the 
will of God they will never know of the doctrine. Until they 
break off their sins by a repentance that hates them and sor- 
rows over them, and turn unto the Lord with a faith that 
works by love to Him, they will never see the kingdom of God, 
or know the truth that is able to save their souls. 



SERMON V. 

GOD THE SAME IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AS HE IS 

IN THE NEW. 



1 Corinthians viii. 6. — But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all 
things, and we in Him : and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we 
by Him. 

YOU who look at the text in a reference Bible will find in 
the margin " and we for Him," instead of " and we in 
Him." The meaning is that our existence, our whole being, is 
intended to be subservient to God's pleasure, and to fulfill the 
purpose He had in view in creating us. The same form of ex- 
pression is found in the thirty-sixth verse of the eleventh chap- 
ter of Romans, " For of Him, and through Him, and for Him are 
all things." It occurs also in the sixteenth verse of the first 
chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, " All things were 
created by Him, and for Him." It is from such passages as 
these that the great general truth is elicited which has been so 
admirably expressed by the Shorter Catechism in answering the 
question, " What is the chief end of man ? " 

The text, taken as a whole, is an emphatic statement of the 
unity of God and the relation of believers to Him the source of 
all things ; and of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and his rela- 
tion to all created things in general, and to believers in par- 
ticular : " For though there be that are called gods, whether 
in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many, and lords many), 
yet to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all 
things, and we for Him : and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 
are all things, and we by Him." The contrast is between the 
faith of Christ's disciples, on the one hand, and the notions 
that prevailed in the world around them, on the other. To 
these there are many objects, real or imaginary, which stand 
for gods ; but to us there is but one God ; and He is, first of all, 
in our apprehension of Him, our Father. Not the Father as 



l Cor. viii. 6.] God in Old Testament and in Neiv. 37 

the first person in the Trinity, but as God, the self -existent 
and Eternal One, who is indeed Father, — and who becomes 
Father in the thought of all who apprehend God as He is re- 
vealed by Jesus Christ, the brightness of God's glory, the 
express image of God's person. This one God, is, in the 
second place, the source of all things, to a Christian's appre- 
hension. All created things had their origin in Him alone ; 
and did not, as others thought, owe their beginning to chance, 
or to a multitude of divine originators. Then, in the third 
place, God, as the Christians apprehended Him, was the end 
and aim of all their being. Not only was their existence in- 
tended to be for the doing of God's will, and glorifying Him, 
but it was devoted to this, and consciously. They were con- 
scious that they lived not for themselves, but for God. 

But there was something more than this in the Christians' 
apprehension of God. Not only was God — the eternal and 
self -existent One — their Father, the source and fountain of 
all things, and the end of their whole being, but there was a 
personal revelation of this God; a revelation made to his 
creatures in the act of creation, and still maintained in the 
Lordship of all created things, and in the redemption of those 
who call him Lord with believing hearts. God, the invisible, 
the unapproachable, the incomprehensible, is the source and 
fountain of all created things. But the creating act was per- 
formed by Jesus Christ, the personal manifestation of God ; 
and the rule and government of all created things are in the 
hands of this same Jesus Christ, the Supreme Lord ; and all 
who call God their Father in truth, that is, all who are Chris- 
tians indeed, have become the children of God in his absolute- 
ness by the same Almighty agent by whom creation itself was 
accomplished. As in creation He brought all things forth into 
actual being from God as their source and fountain, so in 
redemption He brought grace and salvation and son ship from 
the same God as their source and fountain, and made them the 
portion of all who received Him. It is thus that Christians are 
by Jesus Christ. By Him as all created things are ; by him 
in their son ship with God. 

The doctrine of the text, therefore is, first that there is but 
one God in the apprehension of all true believers ; and that He, 
as God, is the source of all created things ; the Father of all 



38 Grod in Old Testament and in New. [Serm. v. 

who rightly know Him ; and the end and aim of all their being ; 
and secondly, that this God revealed Himself to the apprehen- 
sion of men as Creator ; and actually created the universe, in 
the person of Jesus Christ, who is sole Lord of the creation 
which came from his omnipotent hand ; and also the Redeemer 
of such as are saved, and the author of their sonship with God. 
The latter clause of the text conveys, therefore, the same idea 
that is conveyed by the noted passage in the third verse of the 
first chapter of Hebrews : " The Son, by whom God made the 
worlds, is the brightness of God's glory, the express image of 
his person, and upholds all things by the word of his power." 
Such, the Apostle says in our text, are the ideas of God which 
are entertained by the believers in Jesus Christ, in opposition 
to all the notions of the heathen pertaining to their gods and 
their ruling deities. 

It is not my purpose, in this sermon, to treat of all this grand 
lesson, but to take one small part of it, and dwell upon that 
with a special practical aim. The notion is very largely enter- 
tained, and very industriously circulated, and dwelt upon in 
certain quarters, that the character of God as it is revealed in 
the Old Testament, and the relation which He sustains to man, 
are very unlike his character and relations as they are revealed 
in the New Testament. This notion is so often asserted, and 
asserted so boldly by those who entertain it, that many minds 
become imbued with the idea that this must be true, notwith- 
standing they still hold, in theory and profession at least, that 
both the Old Testament and the New are alike a revelation of 
the one only living and true God. Our text involves a denial 
of this notion. The One God who created the world, as He is 
revealed in the Old Testament, is the One God whom the 
Christians find revealed and spoken of as the Creator in the 
New Testament. They are one and the same Being. The 
methods of manifestation are the same in both Testaments. 
The character ascribed to Him, and the relation which He 
sustains to the created universe, and to all those who know 
Him, are the same in the New Testament that they are in the 
Old. Believers whose light was derived wholly from the Old 
Testament, worshipped the same God, and saw in Him the 
same attributes, and the same relations to themselves and to 
the world, as do those who have received the fuller light of the 
New Testament. 



i Cok. viii. 6.] God in Old Testament and in New. 39 

Let me now call your attention to a few of the representa- 
tions which the Scriptures give us of the character of God, 
and of his relations to men. These representations will cover 
the ground that is taken by those who entertain the notions to 
which we have referred, and will demonstrate that they are not 
well founded. 

1. In the first place God is represented as a Father. He is 
so represented in both the Old Testament and the New ; and 
both Testaments represent Him to be the Father of precisely 
the same class of men. 

In regard to this truth two fundamentally false assertions 
are constantly made, and easily believed by those who are 
thoughtless, or who are ignorant as to what the Scriptures do 
really teach. In the first place it is asserted that the New Tes- 
tament alone reveals the fatherhood of God, and in the second 
place, that the Old Testament does not teach it. Indeed it is 
often said that the revelation of this, and of what is claimed to 
be its necessary implication, the brotherhood of man, was the 
grand and only distinctive doctrine which Jesus Christ taught 
the world. But as a matter of fact Jesus Christ never taught 
any such general fatherhood of God as it is claimed that He 
taught, namely that He is in the highest sense the Father of all 
men ; nor did He ever recognize any participation of all men, 
without distinction of moral character and of relations to him- 
self, in such a brotherhood as is involved in such teaching. 
He never taught that God is the Father of man as man, nor 
does the New Testament anywhere teach it. The New Testa- 
ment does teach that God is the Father, in a high and special 
sense, of all who are in Jesus Christ by a true and living faith. 
He is the Father of all who are born, not of the flesh, but of 
the Spirit. It does teach that all those who have been born 
again, and been delivered from their sins by redemption, are 
the children of God in a high and special sense, and that they 
are consequently brethren in a high and special sense ; in a 
sense in which no other men are children of God, or brethren 
with those who are his children. This doctrine comes prom- 
inently before us throughout the New Testament. Beginning 
with the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus called his disciples 
to Him and taught them to say, " Our Father who art in 
heaven ; " with a peculiar and tender emphasis on " Our ; " 



40 God in Old Testament and in New. [Serm. v. 

and assured them that as his disciples they were counted chil- 
dren of God, and so tenderly cared for by Him, as their Father, 
that the very hairs of their head were all numbered ; beginning 
thus, with the direct teaching of the Lord Himself, and going- 
onward to the end of the New Testament, the doctrine that 
God is indeed the Father of all who are in his Son Jesus 
Christ, is one of the plainest and most precious that is revealed. 
But this limitation is everywhere apparent. Of all those who 
reject the Son of God, Jesus Christ solemnly declares that God 
is not their Father. So He said to the unbelieving Jews. This 
is the teaching of all New Testament writers. The doctrine of 
the whole New Testament conforms to that statement found in 
the first chapter of the Gospel of John : "To as many as 
received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of 
God, even to them that believe on his name." Hence the 
Apostle Paul says to Christians, addressing them as such* dis- 
tinctively, " Ye all are the children of God, by faith in Jesus 
Christ." 1 And again, in his Epistle to the Romans, he says, 
" As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons 
of God ; " they have received the spirit of adoption whereby 
they cry from their hearts, " Our Father ; " and " The Spirit 
Himself beareth witness with their spirits that they are the 
children of God." In the Epistle to the Galatians he says that 
the grand object for which God sent his Son into this world 
was to redeem them that were under the law, that we might 
receive the adoption of sons. This is the doctrine of the New 
Testament : God is the Father of all the redeemed. All those 
who know Him, love Him, trust in Him, and obey Him, are his 
children. This truth is involved in regeneration, in adoption, 
in heirship. 

But this is equally the doctrine of the Old Testament. It 
is as unequivocally taught in the Old Testament as it is in the 
New. Thus Moses, speaking to the Israelites distinctively as 
the redeemed people of God, says to them, in the sixth verse 
of the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, " Do ye thus 
requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise ? Is He not thy 
Father that hath bought [or redeemed] thee ? " In the verse 
preceding, speaking of the rejecters of God, Moses says, " They 
have corrupted themselves ; their spot is not the spot of his 

i Gal. iii. 26. 



l Cor. viii. 6.] God in Old Testament and in New, 41 

children ; they are a perverse and crooked generation." In 
later times we find the same doctrine, and the same limitation 
of it, still recognized and appealed to as the well-established 
doctrine of the Old Testament. Thus the Prophet Isaiah 
appeals to God in the name of his peculiar people, when they 
had sunken into great distress and obscurity, " Look down 
from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness 
and of thy glory : where is thy zeal and thy strength, the 
sounding of thy boAvels and of thy mercies toward me? are 
they restrained? Doubtless thou art our Father, though 
Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not ; 
thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer ; thy name is 
from everlasting." 1 The same appeal is made, and same rela- 
tionship claimed again, in the following chapter. And this is 
everywhere the teaching of the Old Testament, that God sus- 
tains a peculiar relation to those whom He has redeemed, — a 
relation which He sustains to no other class of men, — and this 
relation is that of a Father to them ; and their relation to Him 
is specially and emphatically that of children. The author of 
our text sums up, in another part of this same epistle, the 
exhortations of God to his people of old, and makes his great 
promise to them to be this : " And I will be a Father unto 
you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord 
Almighty." Both the Old Testament and the New, there- 
fore, alike teach the fatherhood of God ; but, at the same time, 
they alike teach that this fatherhood in its high and peculiar 
sense — the only sense in which the Scriptures ascribe father- 
hood to Him as a distinctive characteristic of his relation to 
men — is limited strictly to those whom He has saved from 
sin and made his people by redemption. They both alike 
teach the sonship of men with God, but at the same time they 
limit that sonship to those who receive the Son of God as their 
Lord and Redeemer, even to those who believe on his name. 

2. In the second place, every essential attribute of God, as 
He is revealed in the New Testament, is clearly and unequivo- 
cally ascribed to Him in the Old Testament. He is not, as is 
so often asserted, a being of any different character in the one 
case from what He is in the other. He is no more a being of 
justice in the Old Testament than He is in the New. He is 

1 Isaiah lxiii. 15, 16. 



42 G-od in Old Testament and in New, [Sekm. v. 

no more a being of love in the New Testament than He is in 
the Old. He is a being of no more sternness and severity in 
his feelings and conduct towards the wicked in the Old Testa- 
ment than He is in the New. He is endowed with no more 
mercy, with no more pity, with no more long-suffering, with 
no more desire for the good of men, with no greater unwilling- 
ness that they should perish, with no greater readiness to save 
the penitent and believing and obedient in the New Testa- 
ment than He is in the Old. 

Look at a few of the passages in which the New Testament 
sets forth the sterner qualities of the divine character, and 
show his hatred of sin, and his disposition to punish it, and 
you will be convinced. " The wrath of God is revealed from 
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." 
.... " God will render to every man according to his 
deeds, unto them that are contentious and do not obey the 
truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribu- 
lation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil. 
.... For there is no respect of persons with God. For as 
many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law ; 
and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the 
law, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by 
Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." The Apostles all speak 
in this same strain. Nothing can be found in the Old Testa- 
ment that exceeds the fearful severity of their language when 
they are speaking of the justice of God, and the effect of that 
justice on the impenitent and the rejecters of the gospel. Of 
all such the unvarying testimony of the Apostles is that they 
must sink before the severity of divine justice. They all 
declare of God, that vengeance — avenging justice — is his, 
and He will repay for transgression and sin. This quality of 
avenging justice, and its destructive power on the wicked, are 
nowhere in the Old Testament more pointedly declared. 

Nor is the language of our Saviour less emphatic, nor less 
terrible, when He speaks of God's justice and of its effects 
on the wicked and the rejecters of the salvation which He 
offers them. Nay, there is no language in the whole compass 
of the Bible so terrible in the exhibition of God's severity as 
is that which was used by our Saviour Himself. There is a 
sadness and tenderness ever in his tones as He speaks of the 



l Cor. viii. 6.] God in Old Testament and in New, 48 

punishment of the finally guilty ; but oh, how fearfully plain 
and pungent and faithful his words are ! The man who hears 
divine commandments and does not obey them, is like the 
foolish man who built his house on the sand, and all his hopes 
are swept away by a fearful destruction in the hour of trial. 
" The day is coming when the doers of evil shall come forth 
unto the resurrection of damnation," and these shall go away 
into everlasting punishment. In the final day He will say to 
the wicked, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, 
prepared — not for men — not for men — but for the devil 
and his angels." Is there anything in the Old Testament that 
can surpass these terrific words of the Man of Sorrows and of 
Love ? Is there anything that can compare with them ? The 
God of the Jews never uttered sentences to them in all their 
history so full of awfulness in setting forth the severity of his 
justice towards those who will live in sin and reject his offers 
of mercy. The character of God is, therefore, no different as 
respects its justice and severity as it is revealed in the New 
Testament from what it is in the Old. There is no discrep- 
ancy in the two revelations. The New Testament as clearly 
reveals justice and severity as does the Old. 

But on the other hand the Old Testament reveals, as clearly 
as does the New, the mercy and loving kindness and compas- 
sion and long suffering of God towards men. There is not 
the difference in these respects in the character of God as it 
is set forth in the two Testaments that is often asserted ; and 
as, not unlikely, multitudes of otherwise well instructed Chris- 
tians firmly believe. Let me reverse the process and give a few 
of the many passages in which the Old Testament declares 
the love and mercy and tenderness of God ; and you will see 
that its language is not surpassed by anything in the New 
Testament in this direction. The New Testament has new 
phases of these qualities of the divine character ; and shows 
them .more fully in their direct bearing on the great work of 
human redemption through the death of the Son of God ; but 
it does not reveal them any more clearly, nor any more em- 
phatically, as the distinctive attributes of God. 

You will not fail to call to mind that wonderful passage in 
the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus, where God spake to 
Moses in the Mount : " And the Lord descended in the cloud, 



44 God in Old Testament and in New. [Serm. v. 

and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the 
Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, 
The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffer- 
ing, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for 
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." This 
at the very beginning of the national life of Israel ; and it was 
this God who stood before the faith, and in whom rested the 
hope of every believing sinner who learned the character of 
God from the Old Testament. Prophets, Psalmists, and all 
who were commissioned to reveal the character of God to 
men, spoke in the same strain, and revealed the same merciful, 
long suffering, gracious, and forgiving God. Nothing can be 
more tender and touching than some of the passages written 
by the prophets when they were setting forth these features of 
the character of Jehovah. Isaiah especially dwells upon them 
with peculiar fondness : " Ho, every one that thirsteth," etc. ; 
" Let the wicked forsake his way," etc. And even the sterner 
and more denunciatory Ezekiel often comes back to them, and 
insists with great earnestness on the fact that if men will per- 
ish it is from no lack of mercy and compassion in God, but 
only because they will persist in rebellion against him, and 
in trampling his mercy under their feet. It was through this 
prophet, you will remember, that Jehovah pleaded with Israel 
in those memorable words, " Cast away from you all your 
transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed ; and make you 
a new heart and a new spirit : for why will ye die, O house of 
Israel ? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that 
dieth, saith the Lord God." Again, xxxiii. 11 : " Say unto 
them, As I live saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the 
death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way 
and live." We need not multiply passages of this kind. 
They abound in every part of the Old Testament. And it 
was only saying what all who knew the teachings of the Old 
Testament knew, when the Psalmist declared in that crown- 
ing passage in the one hundred and third Psalm : " The Lord 
is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. 
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them 
that fear him." 

We repeat, there is nothing in the New Testament more 
clear, nothing more tender, nothing more emphatic on this 



i Cob. viii. 6.] God in Old Testament and in New, 45 

point, than large portions of the Old Testament. They who 
read the words of Jesus of Nazareth, and of his disciples, in 
telling us what the character of God is, read simply repetitions 
and confirmations of the descriptions of that character as given 
in what Moses in the Law, and the Prophets and the Psalmists 
did write. 

The God of Moses and Israel, and the God of all the holy 
men in the Old Dispensation, and the God of Apostles and 
all who worship God under the light of the New Dispensa- 
tion, are one and the same ; one and the same in the rela- 
tion which He sustains to men in general, and to his people in 
particular ; one and the same in all the elements of his char- 
acter, and in all the attributes of his being. In the Old Testa- 
ment and in the New, his strange work is judgment, — his fond 
work is mercy. When it must be — as often in Old Testa- 
ment history, when wickedness became rampant and hope- 
less He visited in wrath ; when it must be — and the circum- 
stances demand it now, and at the final day — He will still visit 
with wrath. 

Such is the character of God. Against such a God have we 
all sinned. To the mercy and compassion and forgiveness and 
sonship of such a God the gospel invites us to-day. From 
the just anger, and the long delayed wrath of such a God does 
the gospel to-day invite us with words of warning and loving 
entreaty. 

God grant us hearts to refuse not Him that speaketh. 



SERMON VI. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT REVEALS SALVATION. 



Luke xvi. 29. — Abraham said unto him, They have Moses and the Prophets ; let 
them hear them. 

|"T is common to speak of this portion of our Lord's teachings 
-L as u the parable of the rich man and Lazarus." It may- 
be seriously questioned, however, whether it would not be more 
accurate to call it " the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus." 
There is no intimation that it is a parable. It has few, if any, 
of the characteristic marks of a parable. It has all the charac- 
teristics of a narrative. There is no intimation, either in the 
words themselves or in the circumstances in which they were 
spoken, or in their evident purpose, that our Lord was not giv- 
ing an account of actual persons and scenes and transactions. 
So far as anything can be made out from the record itself, the 
rich man was a real person, who once lived in this world, and 
fared sumptuously every day ; and, after a life of self-indul- 
gence and worldliness, died, and was buried ; and in hell lifted 
up his eyes, being in torments. And Lazarus, so far as we can 
make out the case from our Lord's own words, was another 
real person, who lived on this earth at the same time that the 
rich man did ; and after a life of extreme poverty and great 
sufferings, died, and was carried to Paradise, — the " Abra- 
ham's bosom " of the Jews. And if we take our Lord's words 
just as they are recorded, — and we dare not take them other- 
wise, — the conversation, which He says took place between 
Abraham and the rich man, was a real conversation, and not 
one that our Lord invented. The sufferings of the rich man, 
and the happiness of Lazarus, were real sufferings and real 
happiness, and not invented sufferings and invented happiness. 
The flame that tormented the rich man was as real a flame as 
any that can touch and torment a disembodied spirit. The 



Luke xvi. 29.] The Old Testament reveals Salvation. 47 

flame that can reach and burn a spirit after it is separated 
from the body is not a material flame, indeed, but a spiritual 
one ; yet none the less real because spiritual, but it may be far 
more terrible than any material flame can be to the soul. 

No one can say, therefore, that the words before us are not a 
part of genuine narrative. No one has a right to affirm that 
they are a part of a fictitious story. 

But if it were granted that our Lord uttered this account of 
the rich man and Lazarus as a parable, yet the meaning and 
purpose of it were the same as though He had uttered it as a 
narrative. The truths conveyed, and the lessons taught, are 
precisely the same in either case. In either case our Lord 
teaches us that there is an indissoluble connection between the 
life that now is and that which is to come ; and that the des- 
tiny of each man in the world to come is determined by the 
life he leads and the character he forms, in the life that now 
is. A worldly, self-indulgent, easy, self-pampering life here 
leads with unerring certainty to woe and torments and un- 
availing regrets in the world that is to come. This is the 
solemn truth, the grand lesson of the narrative, if it be a nar- 
rative. It is the solemn truth, the grand lesson of the parable, 
if it be a parable. 

Bearing this truth and this lesson in mind, let us now give 
our attention to that portion of our Lord's words which we 
have read for our text : " Abraham said, They have Moses and 
the Prophets ; let them hear them." 

This was said as an answer to the rich man's request that 
Abraham would send Lazarus to testify to the rich man's five 
brothers, lest they also should come unto his place of torment. 
By testifying the rich man meant bearing witness to the fact 
that there is a hereafter ; to the reality and fearfulness of the 
sufferings of the lost, and to the certainty that such a life as the 
rich man had lived would end in such torments as the rich man 
was now suffering. He vainly thought, just as multitudes now 
think, that all that his five worldly-minded, easy-living, self- 
pampering brothers needed to turn them from such a course of 
living, and set them earnestly upon the great work of repent- 
ance and holy living and preparing for heaven, was the testi- 
mony of one who should rise from the dead and speak to them. 

But Abraham told him plainly that they already had all the 



48' The Old Testament reveals Salvation, [Serm. vl 

testimony that they needed ; all that could be of any avail to 
them. The writings of Moses and the Prophets were enough. 
These contained the very testimony, and uttered the very 
truths that the rich man wanted Lazarus to go and declare. 
And not only so, but when the rich man urged the case and 
insisted, that if one should go to them from the dead they 
would repent, Abraham declared emphatically that if they 
heard not Moses and the Prophets, they would not be per- 
suaded even though one rose from the dead and warned them. 

By Moses and the Prophets are meant the Scriptures of the 
Old Testament. What Abraham declared was that these 
Scriptures clearly taught the great fact of a future state of 
existence ; the great fact that that existence would be to every 
man an existence in happiness or in misery ; and the great 
fact that this happiness and this misery depended wholly on 
the character and life that each man lived in this world. Such 
were the truths that Abraham announced to this lost soul ; and 
these are the truths that are clearly involved in the words be- 
fore us. 

Our Saviour, by quoting, indorsed the language of Abra- 
ham. He showed that he accounted the reply of Abraham to 
the rich man just and sufficient. By this indorsement oi 
Abraham's words He made them his own, and thus taught us 
a lesson of great importance regarding the Old Testament, 
namely, that the Old Testament contained all that was nec- 
essary in order to the salvation of those who would heed its 
teachings. 

Let us look at a few of these teachings, and we shall see 
how fully they involve this truth. 

1. In the first place, they teach the moral government of 
God over men, and, by teaching this, they set forth clearly the 
accountability of men to God. This is the meaning of moral 
government in its bearing on men, or any other moral agents. 
It means that they are responsible to God for their conduct 
and characters, and that God will hold them rigidly to this 
responsibility. It means, also, that God has so constituted men, 
and so ordained consequences of conduct and character, that 
men cannot but reap the fruit of their own doings, either as 
rewards or as punishments. Because a righteous God rules 
over men, therefore they will reap what they sow. They are 



Luke xvi. 29.] The Old Testament reveals Salvation. 49 

answerable to God for what they do, and He exacts the account 
through the operation of those very principles of retribution 
by which He has bound consequences to conduct, in the moral 
and spiritual world, as closely as He has bound effects to causes 
in the material world. 

All this was plainly taught in the Old Testament. It is one 
of the most prominent of its doctrines. Every one of its 
readers became familiar with it, and had it constantly im- 
pressed upon his attention. He read again and again the 
sentiment which the Psalmist uttered in the words, " Thou 
renderest to every man according to his work ; " and which 
the Prophet uttered when he said, " Ah, Lord God, behold 
thou hast made the heaven and the earth, by thy great power 
and stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee ; 
thou showest loving kindness unto thousands, and recompen- 
sest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their 
children after them ; the Great, the Mighty God, the Lord 
of Hosts is his name, great in counsel and mighty in work ; 
for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men ; 
to give every one according to his ways, and according to the 
fruit of his doings." Often must the rich man have heard, 
even in the midst of his life of feasting and self-indulgence, 
the words of the wise preacher, " Know thou, that for all these 

things God will bring thee into judgment For God 

shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, 
whether it be good, or whether it be evil." 

By such language as this, — and it prevails all through the 
Old Testament, — those who read it were fully taught the 
moral government of God over men, and their accountability 
to Him. They were made, therefore, to know that their fu- 
ture destiny was placed in their own hands ; and that they 
could not escape the legitimate consequences of their conduct 
and method of life. They had light enough, if they would 
heed it, to guide them in choosing a right course of life ; and 
to persuade them, if mere knowledge would persuade them, 
to turn away from wrong courses. The fact of the moral gov- 
ernment of God over men made the wretchedness of the future 
as certain to an evil doer, or a rejecter of God's authority, as 
it could be made by any testimony that could be given, even 
though one were sent from the dead to give it. 



50 The Old Testament reveals Salvation. [Serm. vi. 

2. But, secondly, not only were the readers of the Old 
Testament taught the moral government of God over men, 
and hence their accountability, and the certainty of reaping 
the consequences of their conduct either as rewards or as pun- 
ishments, but they were assured of this by the plainest and 
most positive declarations that inspired men could utter. The 
matter was not left to inference. The inference from the fact 
of moral government was, indeed, so necessary that they would 
have been without excuse for not seeing it, and acting on it. 
But in this, as in almost everything else involving the well- 
being of men, God added line upon line, and precept upon 
precept ; and made the way of life so plain that a wayfaring 
man, though a fool, need not miss it. 

I know that it has often been asserted that the Old Testa- 
ment did not reveal a future state, nor deal with any rewards 
and punishments, saving such as were temporal and material. 
But this assertion cannot be maintained. Every attentive 
reader of the Old Testament knows that it is not true. Those 
who lived under its light were taught the existence of a future 
state, and the dependence of its conditions on the life and con- 
duct and character of the present. Look at the case as it 
stands. Even the earliest of all the Old Testament books con- 
tains a clear and confident assertion of such a state. Job com- 
forted himself in view of this future, which would be one of 
vindication, for him, against the false charges of his enemies ; 
and one of redemption from the sins of which he was really 
guilty. The latest and ripest scholarship is emphatic in de- 
claring that Job's words " refer to an existence beyond the 
grave ; " and that " the view which restricts his language to an 
earthly hope is opposed to the proper force of the words, to the 
connection of thought, and to the spirit and tenor of the whole 
book." " I know," said the afflicted patriarch, " that my Re- 
deemer lives, and in after time will stand upon the earth ; and 
after this my skin is destroyed, and without my flesh, shall I 
see God." 1 David, in like manner, looked forward into a 
future state to find his sweetest anticipations and fullest joys : 
" Thou wilt not leave my life in the grave, neither wilt thou 
suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me 
the path of life : in thy presence is fullness of joy : at thy 
1 Bible Union's translations and notes. 



Luke xvi. 29.] The Old Testament reveals Salvation. 51 

right hand there are pleasures for evermore." . . . . " As for 
me, I will behold thy face in righteousness : I shall be satisfied 
when I awake with thy likeness." Such was the language of 
faith and hope and joyous expectancy, as the friends of God 
and righteousness looked forward into the future. Their future 
was not one that was bounded by the grave, and came to its 
end there. It rather began there, and stretched away into the 
unending years of God's eternity. The language, too, is that 
of established belief. It indicates a settled habit of mind ; as 
though those who used it were accustomed to solace themselves 
with such hopes and anticipations, and to offset the ills of this 
life with thoughts and assurances of promised joys in the world 
to come. And this is just what the writer of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews says regarding those ancient worthies who lived and 
served God and were saved by the light of the Old Testament 
only : " They all died in faith, not having received the prom- 
ises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of 
them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were 

strangers and pilgrims on the earth They looked for a 

city which hath foundations, whose Maker and Builder is 
God." Thus also our Saviour interpreted the Old Testa- 
ment. Taking even the earliest of Moses' writings, he said 
that they taught the future life. " I am the God of Abra- 
ham," etc. God is not God of the dead, but of the living ; this 
silences the Sadducees. A future of bliss for the righteous 
was thus clearly taught by the Old Testament. 

A future of misery for the wicked was as clearly taught. 
The passages that we have quoted, affirming a judgment to 
come, in which God will bring all deeds before Him for award, 
are, like the passages in which the righteous comfort themselves 
by thoughts and hopes of a future of happiness, the expression 
of settled and well-understood beliefs. The facts of judgment 
and retribution upon the whole of life were treated as items of 
a common and familiar faith. And then, to exclude the pos- 
sibility of supposing that this judgment and retribution could 
have sole reference to the temporal consequences of conduct, 
we have, in the book of the Prophet Daniel, an announcement 
of the resurrection, and of eternal retribution, almost as clear 
as they were announced by our Saviour, and in almost the 
precise words : " The multitude of them that sleep in the dust 



52 The Old Testament reveals Salvation. [Serm. vl 

of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to 
shame and everlasting contempt." Our Saviour's own words 
were but little plainer, and a little fuller of detail : " The hour 
is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the 
voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth ; they that have 
done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have 
done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." 

When we read the announcements which the Old Testament 
makes of judgment and retribution upon every work of man, 
and upon every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it 
be evil, we do not read them as those read them who lived in 
Old Testament times, unless we read them in the light of these 
clear assertions of a future of bliss for the righteous, and these 
announcements of judgment and retribution following a resur- 
rection of all the dead. The rich man, and his five brothers, 
read all these revelations of a future of happiness or of misery 
in just this light. The resurrection and eternal life, or the 
everlasting shame and contempt, revealed by the Prophet 
Daniel, stood side by side with the " judgment," and the 
" rendering unto every man according to his deeds," of all the 
prophets, of the wise Preacher, and of the Psalmist. 

If, therefore, those who had the Old Testament went down 
to death, they went down fully and faithfully warned and in- 
structed. Moses and the Prophets had testified to them as 
plainly as one could have testified to them if he had been sent 
to them from the dead. They were warned, they were in- 
structed, they were remonstrated with ; they were invited and 
entreated to choose the way of life ; and they had it plainly 
pointed out to them. God most solemnly assured them that 
" the soul that sinned, it should die ; " and that, though hand 
joined in hand, sin should not go unpunished. If they went 
down to death they were without excuse. The way to have 
escaped it was clearly pointed out to them. 

3. This brings me to say, thirdly, that the Old Testament 
plainly taught the way of a sinner's salvation. It did not 
teach it as fully as the New Testament teaches it ; but it 
taught it plainly ; and therefore was sufficient for the salvation 
of those who gave heed to it. 

What we have been dwelling upon has had reference more 
to the clearly announced consequences of evil conduct, and of 



LukexvL 29.] The Old Testament reveals Salvation, 53 

wrong methods of living, than to the possibility and way of sal- 
vation from evil consequences already incurred. Very much of 
the Old Testament, as well as of the New Testament, is taken 
up with declarations regarding the punishments and evil points 
of sin, to deter man from committing it. If revelation stopped 
here, there would be little hope or comfort in it for the sinner 
who has already ruined himself by transgression. There would 
then remain nothing for him but " a fearful looking for of judg- 
ment and fiery indignation." But the revelation of the Old 
Testament does not stop here. It both fully recognizes the 
wants of such a sinner and provides for them. It recognizes 
the fact that every human being is such a sinner, and yet 
recognizes the fact that there is hope for him. And this, not- 
withstanding its pointed and sweeping declarations regarding 
the fixedness of the law that binds consequences to conduct ; 
the harvest to the sowing. It recognizes a provision of mercy 
in the divine government; and clearly teaches the fact that 
God can " be just and justify the guilty ; " though it does not 
fully show how this can be done. It remained for " the Lamb 
of God " to come and take away the sin of the world by the 
the offering of that blood which cleanseth from all sin ; and is 
" a propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but for the 
sins of the whole world," before the method of divine forgive- 
ness and mercy could be clearly understood. But that Lamb 
was typified ; that propitiating blood was foretold, and pointed 
to ; and in view of it the fullest invitations were given to sin- 
ners to return unto God ; and the fullest and most earnest 
assurances were made to them, that returning, they should 
find favor and be saved. " There is forgiveness with God 
that He may be feared," was the declaration of all the sacrifices 
of the Old Testament dispensation, and of large portions of 
Old Testament language. " Let the wicked forsake his way, 
and the unrighteous man his thoughts ; and let him return 
unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our 
God for He will abundantly pardon," is the burden of all pro- 
phetic utterances, after they have charged home the guilt of 
sinners upon them, and warned them of the evils and punish- 
ments that are in store for them. " Repent, and turn your- 
selves from all your transgressions ; so iniquity shall not be 
your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, where- 



54 The Old Testament reveals Salvation. [Serm. vi. 

by ye have transgressed ; and make you a new heart and a 
new spirit ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? For I have 
no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God ; 
wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye." This is the burden of 
all God's addresses to the guilty and ruined throughout the 
Old Testament. 

Nothing further was needed, therefore, in the way of testi- 
mony regarding either the fact of a future world, or of the 
consequences of sin and false living, or of the possibility and 
way of salvation, to make the readers of the Old Testament 
understand their accountability, their exposure to the fearful 
consequences of sin in the world to come, or the necessity of 
repentance and a return to God in order to salvation. The 
consequences of sin, the reality of a future world, the depend- 
ence of the destiny of that world on the conduct and charac- 
ter of men in this world, and yet the possibility and way of 
salvation by the mercy and forgiveness of God, these were all 
revealed in the Old Testament. They were so plainly revealed 
that men could not fail to find them who would give heed to 
the words that revealed them. The revelation was therefore 
abundantly clear, and abundantly full, to have saved from 
death every soul that perished under their light. The reve- 
lation was so clear, and so full, that Dives need not, after 
death, have lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torments. He 
might have been carried by angels, as Lazarus was, to Abra- 
ham's bosom ; and he would have been carried there had he 
given due heed to Moses and the Prophets. The revelation is 
so clear, and so full, that the rich man's five brothers had no 
need that one should go from the dead, and testify to them of 
sin, and of righteousness, and of future retribution. The testi- 
mony which they had was so full and so clear that no further 
testimony could have added to its strength. 

But you and I, my hearers, have not only all this, but we 
have all of the New Testament besides. We have not only all 
that the rich man and his five brothers had, and having which 
they had no excuse for living false lives, and went down to 
death with all their blood on their own head ; but we have the 
testimony of one who did rise from the dead. 

They had the dawning of the day ; we have the noon-day 
shining of the sun. 



SERMON VII. 

THE WORTH OF MAN. 



Ps. viii. 4. — What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that 

thou visitest him ? 

THESE questions express amazement on the part of the 
Psalmist. He was considering the glory of God as it is 
manifested in the material creation, and exclaimed, " O Lord 
our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! who hast 
set thy glory above the heavens." 

At this point his thoughts turned to the works of God among 
men. Here also his glory was revealed : " Out of the mouth 
of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength," or, as our 
Saviour rendered it, " hast thou perfected praise," " because of 
thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the 
avenger." 

It was at this point that his amazement began. It was 
astonishing to him that this great and glorious God should 
make any account whatever of men, and condescend to heed 
either their praises or their evil dispositions toward Him. He 
therefore exclaimed, " "When I consider the heavens the work 
of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast or- 
dained ; what is man that thou art mindful of him ? and the 
son of man, that thou visitest him ? " 

It was true, and the Psalmist could not shut his eyes to the 
fact, that this great and glorious God did concern Himself with 
men ; that his mind was affected by their enmities and evil dis- 
positions, and that He did take pleasure in their subjection to 
his will, and seek to honor Himself by the praises of even the 
weakest and obscurest of the race. He did, as a matter of 
fact, take cognizance of men in all the variety of their condi- 
tions, and was tenderly regardful of them and interested in 
them. This was a matter of wonder to the Psalmist whenever 



56 The Worth of Man. [Skrm. vii. 

he looked at the grandeur and magnificence ot the visible crea- 
tion, and thought of the insignificance of man considered as a 
part of that creation. 

This has been a standing wonder among men from that time 
till the present. Some of the most specious, if not the ablest 
arguments against the fact of a written revelation from God 
have been drawn from this very source ; as have also those 
against the great central truth declared in this revelation — 
the Atonement. It has seemed to multitudes of men incred- 
ible that the Creator and Sustainer of worlds of such untold 
number, and such inconceivable magnitude as compared with 
the earth, should make choice of this inconsiderable globe, this 
mere speck in his creation, and its handful of inhabitants, a 
handful compared with the unnumbered millions of beings that 
are supposed to exist in other and grander worlds, for such 
momentous transactions. Many men have gone to the length 
of discarding the Scriptures, and counting the plan of salvation 
through the intervention of the Son of God an absurdity, sim- 
ply on the ground that this earth is so insignificant a part of 
the material universe, and that its inhabitants are so few and 
worthy of so little supposed consideration compared with other 
created intelligences. 

But the fact remains to us as it did to the Psalmist, that 
God is " mindful of man, and that He has visited him." To 
our minds the mission of the Son of God to this world is a great 
and unquestionable truth, and such a demonstration of the love 
and condescension of God as cannot be brought into doubt in 
the smallest measure by any of the discoveries of science, or by 
any of the inferences that can be drawn from these discoveries. 
This we know, of whatever else we are ignorant, and however 
strange it may seem to us when we think of it, — this we 
know, that God has in this manner manifested the deepest in- 
terest in the well-being of man, and the highest appreciation of 
his worth and importance among creatures. The history of 
the world abounds moreover with instances of his interposition 
in their behalf of sufficient number and magnitude to establish 
the fact of a constant oversight and interested government 
among men, and for their welfare ; and the cross of Christ is a 
proof that will stand through eternity, and carry conviction to 
all who duly consider it, that God counts man to be of greater 



Ps. viii. 4.] The Worth of Man. 57 

worth, and of more importance than all material things. He 
gave his only begotten Son, the Creator of the universe, for 
man's redemption. This gift is God's measure of man's worth. 
It shows that He counts him as much more important than the 
material universe, as the Creator of the material universe is 
more important than the universe itself. 

Let us now give our attention to some things that we learn 
from the Scriptures on this subject. Why is it that God shows 
such great consideration for man ? Why does He count him 
of so much importance, that He is even mindful of him, and 
has visited him with such love and condescension ? 

1. In the light of the Bible we know that it is not because 
of his body. 

Man's body is important : it is of great worth : it honors 
God by the perfection and adaptation of its members. No 
one can contemplate it, thoughtfully and rightly, in its struct- 
ure and uses, and not feel constrained to exclaim with David, 
" I will praise thee ; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." 
It was on man's body as a part of the creation that God looked 
and saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very 
good. Its capacities are immensely greater, its adaptations im- 
mensely more numerous, than are those of any other earthly 
bodies. The body of the highest creature below man is but a 
clumsy machine compared with his, though marvelous in its 
structure and its adaptations to the purposes for which it was 
made. But even man's body is, at best, only an instrument, 
and, in its present form, is intended only for temporary uses. 
Soon it is to be taken to pieces and resolved into the general 
mass of unorganized matter out of which it was formed. " Dust 
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is the divine ap- 
pointment for it ; and in this appointment God has mani- 
fested his estimate of its value. It is of immense value be- 
cause it has received so much of its Maker's care and skill in 
its structure ; but its value is all subservient and temporary, and 
all destined to come to naught when it has been made use of 
to accomplish a specific end. Beyond this it has no worth as 
a body, and ceases to be. In the resurrection, even, it has 
no being or recognition as an organization like the present one 
of flesh and blood. The body of the resurrection will be a 
spiritual body. And even that body will be of value, not for 



58 The Worth of Man. [Sbbm. vn. 

itself alone, but, like the body of the present state, its worth 
will be subservient — useless in itself — of value only as the 
instrument of the soul. 

2. Again, in the light of the Scriptures we know that the 
high estimate that God puts on man is not on account of his 
moral character or deeds. If there is any one thing more 
plainly revealed in the Scriptures than anything else, it is 
that the moral character of men, considered as men, is fearfully 
depraved, and their lives sinful. The race as a whole, and 
every individual member of it, is, in his unregenerate state, 
unholy, and morally unlovely in the sight of God. There is 
a something in him that taints all his moral acts, all the ele- 
ments of his moral character, to such a degree that he cannot, 
in this condition, please God. For the plain assertion is, 
" They that are in the flesh cannot please Him." 

When we look at the law of God and consider its claims, 
it is not difficult to discover what a part, at least, of this 
something is. The law of God is the expression of what a 
moral agent's character ought to be, and what ought to be his 
acts, and the habit and aim of his life. A perfect moral char- 
acter, judged by this law, — and this is the law by which God 
judges, — a perfect moral character, one that God can take 
pleasure in, is a character that spontaneously, and without ceas- 
ing, prompts one to " love the Lord his God with all his heart, 
and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his 
mind ; and his neighbor as himself." And a perfect life is 
one that carries out, by spontaneous and uninterrupted choice, 
all the promptings of such a character in all the conduct and 
in all the relations which one sustains to God or men. Noth- 
ing short of this is moral perfection. Nothing short of this is 
obedience to God and conformity to his will. But coming 
short of this is positive disobedience and transgression of the 
divine law. A character that prompts anything short of this 
is depraved. It prompts acts of disobedience and disregard 
of God. 

Any man with this character is therefore living in hostility 
to the will and government of God ; and if the law of God 
requires only that which is right, and if moral goodness consists 
only in the carrying out of the spirit of this law, and if moral 
goodness of character consists alone in its conformity to this law 



Ps. viii. 4.] The Worth of Man. 59 

in all its desires and motives and promptings, then of course 
moral goodness cannot be affirmed of any life that falls short of 
absolute and entire consecration to God's will ; nor of any char- 
acter that embodies any element of selfishness and transgression. 

This was evidently the ground that our Saviour took with 
the man who " came running and kneeling to Him, and asked 
him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal 
life ? " " And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good ? 
there is none good but one — God." This young man was, 
and had been from his youth, a pattern of amiability and fair 
dealing with all his fellow-men. He solemnly declared that 
he had from his earliest years kept faithfully each of the com- 
mandments that the Saviour repeated to him, " Do not commit 
adultery ; do not kill ; do not steal ; do not bear false witness ; 
defraud not ; honor thy father and mother." Our Lord did 
not question that the young man was sincere in this declara- 
tion, nor did He deny its truth. On the contrary, it is evident 
from the verse that follows it that He admitted that the young 
man was sincere in his declaration, and that the declaration 
was true, judged by the common standard of moral action ; for 
it is immediately added, " Then Jesus, beholding him, loved 
him." There was much to love in such a life and character. 
No one who was right-minded could help loving it. 

But, at the same time, our Saviour did not take back what 
he had just said, " There is none good but one — God; " but, 
on the contrary, he went on to say, in all tenderness and fidelity, 
" One thing thou lackest." There was one fatal hinderance to 
his having the favor and approval of God on his character and 
life, notwithstanding there was that in him which God Himself 
loved. One thing thou lackest in order to the possession or 
enjoyment of eternal life. One thing, therefore, stood between 
him and the favor of God. What that thing was is plainly 
enough indicated in the direction that follows, " Go thy way ; 
sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt 
have treasure in heaven ; and come, take up the cross, and 
follow me." This tore oif the covering from the young man's 
heart ; for it is added : " And he was sad at that saying, and 
went away grieved ; for he had great possessions." All his 
fancied goodness was earthly, and not heavenly ; and all was 
subservient to a supreme regard for his worldly interests. 



60 The Worth of Man. [Serm.vii. 

These held sway in his soul, and were the object of his 
strongest love and intensest devotion. He did not love God 
" with all his heart, and soul, and mind ; " but he loved these 
interests, and lived for them, and therefore lived in constant 
rejection of God, in the constant setting at naught of his 
authority, in the constant transgression of his law, and in the 
constant indulgence of sin. Was not his moral character de- 
formed and unlovely then ? Was it not depraved ? Was not 
his life such that God must be displeased with it ? 

But if this was the character and life of one so eminent in 
what is called goodness, and if in him they were so offensive to 
God that they stood between the young man and eternal life, 
then it cannot certainly be the character and life of men gener- 
ally, the vast majority of whom are so immeasurably inferior to 
this young man in what passes for moral goodness ; it cannot 
be the moral character and life of men, I say, that moves God 
to think so highly of them, and to count them so valuable. 

3. But, thirdly, we learn from the Bible that it is for what; 
men are in themselves, in their mental and spiritual being, that 
He estimates their value at so high a price. 

That it is for that which they are in themselves, as distin- 
guished from their moral character and deeds, is evident, first, 
because all his manifestations of regard for them have been 
made towards them while they were possessing a character that 
was offensive to Him while thus living in sin against Him. " For 
God commendeth his love towards us in that, while we were yet 
sinners, Christ died for us." And, secondly, because it was for 
men as they were, in spite of the unloveliness and depravity of 
their moral characters and lives, and to save them from this 
unloveliness and depravity, that God gave the life of his only 
begotten Son as the price of their redemption ; for " we were 
redeemed, not by silver and gold, but by the precious blood of 
Christ." 

This distinction between what men are in their own natures, 
and what they are in moral character, is too often lost sight of 
by us, and we are led into much confusion by losing sight of it. 
But the sacred writers never overlooked it. They always 
looked at man — when they spoke of him as the object of God's 
love and high estimation — as something distinct from his 
character ; and they looked on his character as something good 



Ps. vfii. 4.] The Worth of Man. 61 

or bad pertaining to man in his essential being, and determin- 
ing his destiny. Hence they always look on man himself as 
the creation of God. His essential being is that which God 
pronounced good at the beginning, and which He has ever 
counted the most valuable thing on earth. But man's moral 
character they look upon as something not of God's creating, 
but of man's own making. They therefore look on the former, 
or man himself, — his essential being, — as that which was 
worthy of God's love, and which He did so love that He gave 
his only begotten Son to save it from the ruin into which sin 
had plunged it. The latter, man's moral character, they look 
upon as that on account of which God is angry with him every 
day that it remains unchanged ; which holds him in ruin ; and 
which, unless it is changed, will make his ruin eternal. In the 
former they see that which the Son of God took upon Himself, 
and in which He now appears as our Intercessor in heaven. 
In the latter they see that from which He sought, by taking 
their nature on Himself, to deliver them, and, by securing for 
them another character, to make them fit, themselves also, to 
appear and forever dwell in heaven. 

When the Psalmist asked the questions before us, he was 
thinking of man as he is in himself, in his essential being, in 
some measure at least, for he immediately adds, " For thou 
hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned 
him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have domin- 
ion over the works of thy hands." He recognized the true 
dignity of man as a creation of God. He declared his great 
elevation and his importance by reason of the inherent and 
essential elements of being with which God had endowed him. 
The moral degradation into which he had fallen in his aliena- 
tion from God, his devotion to sin, the guilt and ruin he had 
brought on himself by his transgression of the law of God and 
departure from Him, — all this the Psalmist often confessed, as 
all who are guided by the Scriptures, or by careful observation 
of men in the light of the Scriptures, must confess ; but he did 
not forget, and we have no right to forget, that man himself, 
in the faculties of his soul, the essential elements of his being, 
remains unchanged. Could he be changed in these he would 
not be man, but would become something else. It is with 
man in this respect as it is with the fallen angels. In them- 



62 The Worth of Man. [Seem. vii. 

selves, in their essential being, they are the same that they 
were in heaven. They are endowed with the same faculties 
that made them capable of a heavenly service. If you deprive 
them of these faculties they cease to be the beings they were, 
and become something else. But their moral character was 
changed by their sin. This was no longer what it had been, 
but it became something else — something very different. In 
the essential elements of their being they remain the same. 
Angelic nature in them is still good, as the creation of God ; 
and its capabilities in them are the same that they are in the 
angels that have kept their first estate. But the moral char- 
acter that was righteous in the sight of God, and that made 
them fit for heavenly service and companionship — this exists 
in them no longer. In their moral character there is not one 
trace of resemblance with that which they once had, nor with 
that which holy angels now possess. In moral character they 
are an offense to God, and by it made worthy of the severest 
visitation of his wrath. 

It is the same with man. In the essential elements of his 
being, he is just what he was when he was first formed in 
Adam, and had his home in the garden of Eden. But the 
moral character which man had in Adam, and which made 
him fit for that garden and for communion with a holy God, 
is gone, and in its place is a character that is displeasing to 
God, and deserving of his wrath in punishment. 

It is man himself, therefore, irrespective of any present 
character, man in his inherent capabilities, man having a be- 
ing such that, with a holy character, he is a fit companion of 
the angels in heaven, man with such a nature that the Son of 
God chose to take it upon Himself, not only to accomplish the 
great work of human redemption, but to bear it and to appear 
in it through the ages in heaven ; man with such a being as, 
with a holy character, fits him to be a child of God and a 
joint heir with Jesus Christ in the inheritance of God ; it is 
man thus considered whom God esteems so highly, and counts 
so valuable. It is man thus considered of whom God is ever 
mindful, and whom He visits in his condescension. 

We see in the light of this subject, — 

1. What is meant by human depravity. Not human fac- 
ulties, but human character is wrong. The elements of man's 



Ps. viii. 4.] The Worth of Man. 63 

being are still what God made them. Human character is 
sinful. Its depravity is such that no word but total adequately 
expresses the true state of the case. 

This distinction must always be kept in mind if we would 
form just judgments of men. If we count the essential ele- 
ments of their souls, — their souls considered as a creature of 
God, — depraved and worthless, we shall despair of them ut- 
terly, and never have any faith in them. 

But what is more, if we confound their essential being with 
the moral character superinduced on that being, we shall have 
little or no stimulus to seek their salvation. The distinction 
becomes vital at this point. We must recognize the inherent 
worth of the soul underneath all its depravity, and in spite of 
it, or we shall never become workers together with God in 
seeking to save it. We do not seek the salvation of beasts, 
because we do not see this inherent value in them. The true 
worker with God in the gospel, commends his love for the 
lost in seeking them in their sin. 

2. We, see secondly, what is meant by the regeneration or 
renewal of the soul ; and the absolute necessity of its renewal 
in order that it should have the favor of God and dwell 
in heaven. The regeneration or renewal of the soul is the 
renovation of its moral character. Regeneration pertains solely 
to the moral character, and not at all directly to the substance 
of the soul. Its spirit or temper is changed, not its faculties. 
Its capacity to love, e. g., remains unchanged by regeneration, 
but the object of its love becomes different, and so the char- 
acter or moral, quality of its love itself is different. Its ca- 
pacity for obedience to the behests of a higher power remains 
unchanged ; but the authority to which obedience is given 
becomes different ; and the character of the obedience ren- 
dered is therefore different. The love of the soul must go out 
and rest in God or it can never please Him. The obedience 
of the soul must recognize and honor the authority of God or 
it will forever remain in rebellion against Him, and call forth 
his displeasure and deserve punishment. 

3. We see in the light of this subject how full of hope 
the gospel is for sinners. Its grand announcement is that 
God so loved the world, etc. He loved a world in its ruin and 
guilt. What He loved He was not willing to let perish. It 



64 The Worth of Man. [Serm. vii- 

was that which was in ruin and under guilt that He wished to 
save. Hence his name, Jesus, because He saves his people from 
their sins. His people, their very selves, not from the essential 
elements of their being, but from the sins that had brought this 
being into ruin. It is therefore only that which is ruining you 
that God asks you to give up by repentance. If He can see 
you separated from this, his love for you will draw you into 
his presence, and fill you with his peace and cover you with 
his glory. It is that you may be saved from this, that you are 
commanded to come to Jesus Christ. You cannot deliver 
yourself. He alone can deliver you. u To as many as received 
Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even 
to them that believed on his name." 



SERMON VIII. 

SIN NECESSARY IN A MORAL SYSTEM. 



Matt, xviii. 7. — It must needs be that offenses come : but woe to that man by whom the 

offense cometh. 

THERE is no darker problem, nor one that is a severer trial 
to faith, than the existence of moral evil in the government 
of a holy and almighty God. How it came ; for what reason 
it was permitted ; why it is suffered to continue ; are questions 
to which no thoughtful mind is a stranger, and at which the 
faith of but few intelligent believers has not, at times, been 
staggered. 

In the words of the text, our Lord recognizes the prevalence 
of moral evil in the world, and enunciates a great and impor- 
tant fact pertaining to it ; a fact which, though it does not an- 
swer all of the mind's merely speculative inquiries, yet throws 
light upon some of them and furnishes an important aid to its 
faith. He declares, that even in the government of a holy and 
almighty God, there is a stern necessity that there should be 
sin, as his words are recorded by Luke : " It is impossible but 
that offenses should come " ; as his words are recorded by Mat- 
thew : "It must needs be that they come." That is, as we 
understand his words, canying them back to the great principle 
that underlies them and gives them their greatest significance, 
sin is necessarily involved in a moral system ; it was impossible, 
in the nature of things, that it should not be committed. Thus 
much at least is revealed by the word of our Saviour ; and 
though it does not enable us, as we have said, to know all the 
reasons why evil is permitted, yet it is much that we hear the 
voice of divine authority assert that it was impossible but that 
it should come ; and it is a relief to faith to be assured by One 
in whom it trusts that there was a necessity that it should 
come. 

5 



66 Sin Necessary in a Moral System. [Skrm. viii. 

Nor are we altogether in the dark regarding the reasons of 
this impossibility. We cannot sound them to their lowest 
depths, but there is light thrown upon them from two sources 
suggested by the text, and to these I first invite your attention. 
1. In the first place, we see in the character of moral agency 
itself why moral evil must be possible' in a moral government, 
and in this possibility perhaps a necessity for it, or at least an 
impossibility that it should not be. It is impossible that a moral 
agent should not be able to sin. For a moral agent, be it re- 
membered, is one who has, and he is a moral agent only as he 
has, the ability to do either right or wrong, in any given case. 
He is one who acts voluntarily in all his accountable conduct ; 
always choosing freely, either to do or not to do, the act that 
lies before his mind as one that is possible to him. The act, be 
it right or wrong, of which his mind conceives as thus possible, 
he freely chooses, or as freely refuses to commit. If he com- 
mits it, it is only because he chooses to commit it ; if he does 
not commit it, it is only because he chooses not to commit it. 
Without this power and freedom of choice there could be no 
moral agency, no accountability. And without beings endowed 
with this power and freedom there could be no moral govern- 
ment. God would then be only a physical ruler ; and creatures 
would be only -machines, or, like animals, merely irresponsible 
agents, without moral character or dignity or worthiness. 
Every right act, therefore, of a moral agent, involves an oppo- 
site wrong act as possible, and that might have been done in 
its stead ; and the power to do right involves necessarily the 
power to do the opposite wrong. 

Such is moral agency. It is constituted by the possession of 
the ability to do wrong, not less than the ability to do right ; 
and no power can be brought to bear upon the former to destroy 
it, and make sin impossible, that would not destroy also the 
latter, and make holiness impossible ; nor can we conceive of 
the possibility of an agent being created with the latter with- 
out also the former. 

When, therefore, the creation of moral agents was determined 
upon, it was with this possibility in view, and involved. They 
must be created with this possibility, or not created at all ; 
and if a moral system was to be inaugurated in the universe, 
it must be with the fearful liability wrought into its existence, 



Matt, xviii. 7.] Sin Necessary in a Moral System. 67 

that its subjects might, if they should so choose, use all the 
powers with which they should be endowed for righteous and 
holy uses and most glorious ends, for sinful and unholy uses 
and most ignominious ends. 

Such a system would necessarily be one of motives. Motives 
would be the power by which alone such beings could be gov- 
erned. The moment they were controlled by other influences 
than those coming from motives, and leaving the mind free to 
yield to them or to resist them, that moment the government 
of them would become something higher or lower than moral 
government ; and they would become, to that extent, not 
agents acting, but objects acted upon. The great and control- 
ling power of moral government must be in its motives. The 
strength of such a government would, therefore, depend upon 
the amount of motive power that it could bring to bear upon 
the minds of its subjects to influence them to do right. Its 
weakness, if it had any, would be in the fact that motives to 
wrong-doing would avail, in some instances, to induce the com- 
mitting of sin. The only way of removing this weakness would 
be, not the making of moral agents unable to yield to them or 
feel their power, for this would destroy their character, but 
multiplying the number and increasing the power of motives to 
right action. 

At this point we come in sight, I think, of what may consti- 
tute the necessity of which our Saviour speaks ; or the impos- 
sibility mentioned in his words as recorded by Matthew. The 
necessity may be in this : that the number and power of mo- 
tives to holiness must be increased by an exhibition of the con- 
sequences of sin. But for this exhibition, rightly and timely 
made, the whole moral universe might be seduced into rebel- 
lion, and work thus its entire ruin. It certainly could not but 
strengthen the power of all motives to holiness, and weaken 
that of all motives to sin, to have the fearful consequences of 
sin fully exhibited to the view. Let its legitimate fruit be 
clearly seen and seen as certain, and it is shorn of much of its 
power to allure. 

Besides, there is much in the consequences of sin clearly 
seen, to open the eyes of those who look upon them to its real 
character. They will judge of the tree by the fruit that it 
bears, and their judgment will be more accurate and trust- 



68 Sin Necessary in a Moral System. [Serm. viil 

worthy than it could be without such a sight. When the holy- 
angels saw those who had transgressed and fallen, hurled from 
heaven and consigned in hopelessness and misery to the great 
prison house of the universe in the world of woe, by their sin, 
and this as its legitimate consequence and deserved punish- 
ment, its true character could not but be far better understood 
than it had been before. Its heinousness and malignity would 
be more clearly apprehended. So also when the unf alien in- 
habitants of heaven as well as those who have been saved, look 
down upon the unfolding of sin into its consequences in this 
world, or from this world in hell, the same result can but fol- 
low. And when they saw the crowning act of sin in this 
world, that which revealed its whole character, showing, in the 
murder of the Son of God, that its only stopping place, if it 
could have full sway, would be in the dethronement of God 
and the destruction of everything that is holy and lovely in the 
universe, then, as never before, they must have understood its 
nature and been filled with holy detestation of it. Then all its 
motives must have become weakened, and its power to draw 
them from their allegiance to God forever broken. 

It may also have been impossible for moral beings to have 
obtained the fullest knowledge of the character of God, and so 
to have felt the fullest power of motives for allegiance to Him, 
unless they had been permitted to see Him in his relations to 
sinners, and in his dealings with them. His attributes would 
be more clearly seen and better understood by such a sight 
than they could be without it. His justice as a fact, and as to 
its nature, would be more vividly imprinted upon their minds, 
and more fully understood by them after they had seen it thus 
displayed, — and certainly his mercy and love would be seen in 
a new light, when they came to look upon Him in the gift of 
his only begotten Son, delivered up for sinners that they might 
be saved, and then looked upon a just God, just still, but 
showing mercy, and forgiving them and adopting them as his 
children and making them heirs of eternal glory, through the 
merits, intercession, and atonement of the Redeemer. Every 
exhibition of the love and compassion and mercy of God that 
was made consistently with his justice, and without infringing 
upon his holiness, would be a clearer revelation of Himself, and 
thus an augmenting of motives to love and trust Him. 



Matt, xviii. 7.] Sin Necessary in a Moral System. 69 

But in order to this exhibition, there must needs be sinners 
toward whom it could be made. Pardoning mercy and com- 
passion and grace cannot be shown except to the guilty. If, 
therefore, the full force of motives derived from the character 
of God were to have sway over holy minds, and lend their in- 
fluence toward strengthening and making secure the interests 
of the moral universe, it was impossible but that offenses should 
come. Sin was, in this respect and to this extent, necessary. 
Malignant as it is in its character, fearful as it is in its fruits, 
and without excuse as is its commission on the part of any 
moral agent, yet in dealing with it, in checking its sway, and 
undoing its consequences, through the atonement of Christ, 
God has so revealed the glories of his character, and so multi- 
plied and strengthened the motives to holiness, that not only 
his government over moral beings has been made more secure, 
but those very beings, all that are holy, are lifted into the 
sphere of permanent and unendangered allegiance to their God. 
Motives for them to commit sin have been so weakened and 
destroyed that they have ceased to be felt, while motives to 
holiness have been so multiplied and increased in strength, that 
they never can lose their sway. Thus " where sin abounded 
grace did much more abound." This was the view of the 
Apostle Paul. And to those who would pervert the truth thus 
developed, and say that in so teaching he said, " Let us do 
evil that good may come," his only but all-sufficient reply was, 
" their damnation is just." They cannot, without deep and 
damning guilt, make this use of the doctrine. 

2. The second source of light to which I invited your at- 
tention, respecting the necessity that there should be sin in 
the world, is found in the fact itself, that sin exists in the 
world. If it had not been necessary, the character of God is 
a guaranty that it would never have been permitted. If it 
had been possible, consistently with the perfection of a moral 
system, and the best interest of the universe, for Him to have 
prevented it, his character makes it certain that He would 
have prevented it. He has no pleasure in sin. It is the abom- 
inable thing that He hates. It is always, and in all circum- 
stances, and everywhere, offensive to Him. u He is of purer 
eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity." For 
"the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; his countenance 



70 Sin Necessary in a Moral System. [Serm. viil 

doth behold the upright." " As I live, saith the Lord God, 
I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but that he 
turn and live." He not only, L e., has no pleasure in sin, but 
He has none in its legitimate and necessary result, the death 
of the sinner. Sin itself, and its consequences, are all odious 
to Him. But for a must needs be, therefore, sin could never 
have found a place in any of his creatures. 

This introduces us to the second clause of our text : " Woe 
unto him through whom they come." From this clause we 
learn two great lessons, each of them serving to check and 
refute the objection which we have already noticed to the doc- 
trine of the first clause. The spirit of the passage, as an answer 
to this objection is, Let no one take refuge in the doctrine of 
the impossibility but that sin should be, and be encouraged 
himself to become a sinner ; for M Woe unto him through whom 
the offense cometh." For, — 

1. There is nothing in this or in any circumstances of a 
wrong-doer that can lessen his responsibility or take away 
the guilt of his wrong-doing. If he commits sin it is because 
he chooses to do it. He desires to sin more than he does to do 
right, and he follows the prompting of this desire against the 
dictates of his conscience, and often against both his conscience 
and his judgment. The very fact that the sinner's conscience 
condemns him for wrong-doing puts it beyond question that 
he was without excuse for doing it, and makes it certain that 
he was fully responsible in the doing of it, and that he is 
guilty. No man's conscience condemns him for a thing for 
which he does not know himself to have been responsible ; 
nor for that for which he does not know himself to have been 
guilty. His conscience would cease at once to condemn if he 
could know that another was the responsible author of his sin, 
or even if he could look upon himself as other than the free 
and voluntary agent of its commission. If he could come to 
count God the author, or in any sense the doer of his evil 
deeds, conscience would become silent. He would not be, nor 
would he apprehend himself to be guilty. 

2. The other great lesson which we learn from the second 
clause of our text is, that the fruit of wrong-doing is evil and 
only evil to him who commits it. He cannot but eat that 
fruit. No consequences for good which God will bring out 



Matt, xviii. 7.] Sin Necessary in a Moral System. 71 

of his sin, will lessen in the least his punishment. He meant 
it for evil, and as he meant it so shall it be to him. 

This is the teaching of all the Scriptures : " Whatsoever a 
man soweth that shall he also reap." " Though hand join in 
hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished." " Behold ye have 
sinned against the Lord : and be sure your sin will find you 
out." " Though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and his days 
be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with 
them that fear God, which fear before Him : but it shall not 
be well with the wicked." 

It is true that because sentence against an evil work is not 
executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is 
fully set in them to do evil. But delay to punish is not re- 
mission of penalty. The long suffering and patience of God, 
with sinners, is not forgetfulness of their sins, or a ceasing to 
hold them in abhorrence. The laws of his government are 
often left, in mercy, to work slowly ; but they are never re- 
pealed, never suspended. 



SERMON IX. 

THE IMPUTATION OF ADAM'S SIN.* 



Romans v. 18, part.— By the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condem- 
nation* 

npHE Association of last year saw fit — in my absence, and 
-*- without my consent — to assign to me " The Doctrine of 
the Imputation of Adam's Sin," as the subject of a sermon to 
be preached on this occasion. Imputation to whom, the minutes 
do not state. I have taken it for granted, however, that the 
meaning was, to Adam's posterity. 

Inasmuch, also, as the subject was referred to me for a ser- 
mon, it is to be presumed that the Association desired a Scrip- 
tural, rather than a metaphysical or historical discussion of it. 

The doctrine which I am thus to treat I find plainly taught 
in the words which I have read to you as my text : " By the 
offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." 
This, if I understand the subject, is the exact, as it is the 
Scriptural statement of the doctrine in question. Sentence of 
condemnation came upon all men by the offense of one. All 
men were, by the appointment of God, made subject to the 
penalty of this one man's one offense. In other words, when 
Adam sinned, he, by that sin, brought upon all his posterity 
the doom with which he himself was threatened, and which he 
himself suffered as a penal consequence of his transgression. 

This is the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to his 
posterity. To judicially subject a child to the punishment, or 
penal consequences, of his father's sin, is to impute the father's 
sin to his child. The sin is so set to the child's account that he 
is made liable to the penalty, and is therefore judicially counted 
and treated a sinner because of his father's sin. Thus, also, 

1 Prepared and preached for the Boston North Baptist Association, by appoint- 
ment, as the second in a series of doctrinal sermons, September, 1858. 



Rom. v. 18.] The Imputation of Adam's Sin. 73 

when the posterity of Adam are, by the appointment of God, 
subjected to the penal consequences of the sin by which he fell 
away from holiness. This sin is so set to their account that 
they are judicially counted and treated as sinners because of it. 

Before we proceed to the direct Scriptural argument by which 
we shall attempt to show that this doctrine is true, let me call 
your attention to the fact that the principle — that is, the 
subjecting of certain individuals to the consequences, even the 
penal consequences of another's acts — has ever pervaded both 
the natural and providential government of God over this 
world. No law of nature — that is, no appointment of God in 
nature — is more clearly established than that by which the 
physical condition, and oftentimes the moral condition, of a 
child is determined by some act of his parent in which he had 
no direct participation. Whole families are not unfrequently 
made to eat the bitter fruit of a parent's misdeeds which were 
committed perhaps long before one of the family was born. 
Sometimes by one deed of guilty license, sometimes by a course 
of conduct that has been in violation of the laws of his phys- 
ical system, a parent has brought upon himself and entailed 
upon his posterity a diseased constitution, that is to them an 
inalienable inheritance of misery. The glow of health never 
mantles in beauty over the face of his children, nor can they 
ever know the thrill of ecstasy with which pure health inspires 
and elevates and nerves to energy and action the soul that 
dwells with it in the same body. The father has sinned, and 
the children inherit the curse. The poison which was taken 
into the root has spread itself through all the branches of the 
tree. 

The same is true also respecting the moral health of families. 
Guilty unfaithfulness on the part of parents in the training 
and education of their children, brings forth its bitter fruit in 
moral disease and death in the children's history. 

If we turn to the Scriptures we find that they again and again 
declare that this principle is that upon which God has acted 
in his providential dealings with men. He Himself often placed 
his treatment of individuals and families and nations on this 
very ground. He inflicted punishments or bestowed bless- 
ings on them because of the action of others. The curse of 
Ham was, by special providential appointment, made to rest 



74 The Imputation of Adam's Sin. [Serm. ix. 

upon his children, and they became servants of servants to their 
brethren. God assured Abraham that even Sodom should be 
spared its fearful visitation for the sake of ten righteous per- 
sons if they could be found in it. All Israel fell under the dis- 
pleasure of God, and his anger was kindled against them at 
Ai, because of Achan's sin. He " took of the accursed thing," 
and all the people were in consequence counted and treated as 
transgressors. Eli sinned against God by parental unfaithful- 
ness. His sons in consequence made themselves vile, and the 
punishment of Eli's sin fell upon all his posterity. " I will 
judge his house forever," said God, " for the iniquity which he 
knoweth." " There shall not be an old man in thine house 
forever ; and all the increase of thine house shall die in the 
flower of their age." David sinned in numbering the people 
of Israel and Judah. By that sin he brought the pestilence 
upon seventy thousand men and laid them low in death. 

Look also at the scene which filled the prophet's eye when 
he " saw beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory 
that should follow." More than seven hundred years of the 
future was opened to his vision, and he beheld at that distance, 
One despised and rejected of men ; a man of sorrows, and ac- 
quainted with grief. He had done no violence, neither was 
any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise 
Him : He put Him to grief. He was taken from prison and 
from judgment, and brought as a lamb to the slaughter. He 
was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Why ? Because 
the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Therefore " He was 
wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniqui- 
ties ; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him ; and with his 
stripes we are healed." 

The princijrfe here announced — the subjecting of some to 
the consequences, even the penal consequences of another's con- 
duct — is therefore not unknown, but, on the contrary, it per- 
vades, and ever has pervaded, all the natural and providential 
government of God over this world. 

From this preliminary and general view let us come directly 
to the doctrine of our text, " The imputation of Adam's sin to 
his posterity." Let the explanation of the doctrine which we 
have given be borne in mind continually as we proceed : namely, 
that we mean by the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, 



Rom. v. 18.] The Imputation of Adam's Sin. 75 

their subjection, by the righteous appointment of God, to the 
penalty of his sin. He stood as the constituted representative 
of all his descendants. He acted for them ; and the whole race 
had its probation in him. If he should pass the probation and 
come forth righteous, he would secure a righteous inheritance 
for all his children. If he should fail in the probation and 
come forth a sinner, all the race should be counted as having 
sinned in him, and a judgment of condemnation should rest 
upon them. His sin should be counted their sin, and his pun- 
ishment should be visited upon them also. 

Perhaps this principle may be made more clear by a simple 
illustration. An absolute monarch, suppose, has in his gift an 
office and its accompanying honors, which he determines to 
make hereditary. He calls a serf or a peasant into his pres- 
ence, and formally invests him with the office and its honors, 
and makes them hereditary in the peasant and the family 
that shall be born of him. He imposes, however, one condition, 
upon faithful compliance with which all shall depend. If he 
keep the condition for a certain time then the honor is legally 
the inheritance of his family. If he fail in the condition, the 
inheritance is forever forfeited, both for himself and all his 
family to the latest generation. If now the peasant is faith- 
ful in his probation, he is faithful for those whom he thus rep- 
resents. If he fails in his probation, he fails for them. The 
penalty of his sin is judicially inflicted on them. 

1. That this doctrine is true is evident, first, from the fact 
that the Word of God explicitly declares it. It would be diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, to state the doctrine more plainly than 
it is stated by our text and several passages in its immediate 
connection. Look at a few of these passages : Ver. 12 : " By 
one man sin entered into the world and death by sin ; and so 
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Ver. 
15 : " Through the offense of [the] one [the] many are dead." 
Ver. 16 : " The judgment was by one to condemnation," L e., 
" By one offense was the sentence of condemnation." Ver. 
17 : " By one man's offense death reigned by one." Ver. 19 : 
" By one man's disobedience many were made [constituted] 
sinners." Our text : " By the offense of one, judgment came 
upon all men to condemnation " [sentence of condemnation]. 

It should be borne in mind that all these passages are used 



76 The Imputation of Adam's Sin. [Serm. ix. 

by the Apostle as parallel to, but in contrast with others 
in which he sets forth the doctrine of the imputed righteous- 
ness of Christ to believers. This is the doctrine which he had 
been stating and which he is now illustrating. 

In the last verse of the fourth chapter he had taken up the 
very thought which is expressed in the language of Isaiah, 
which we a few moments ago quoted, and declared that 
" Christ was delivered up to death for our offenses ; " and in 
the fifth chapter he goes on enlarging upon the thought and 
repeating it in new forms and with new emphasis ; saying 
that Christ died for us ; that we are justified by his blood ; 
and that we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son. 
Then, by way of further illustration and enlargement, he lays 
hold of what he regarded, and what was held among the Jews 
to be an admitted and clearly taught truth respecting the head- 
ship and representative character of Adam in his probation, 
and respecting the participation of the race in the penalty 
of his sin. Laying hold of this truth, he makes it throw light 
upon the great truth he was enforcing; showing that as by 
one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by 
the obedience of one, many — even all who receive the gift of 
righteousness — shall be made righteous. In other words, Paul 
here in these passages illustrates and magnifies the doctrine of 
justification of believers by the obedience of Christ, by con- 
trasting it with the admitted and understood doctrine of the 
condemnation of the race by the disobedience of Adam. The 
common doctrine of that day, and for centuries afterward, 
among those who held to the teaching of the Scriptures, re- 
garding the effect of Adam's first, i. e., his representative sin, 
was this, — using the language which is common in Jewish writ- 
ings, — " Adam was a head to all the children of men ; when 
he sinned, all the world sinned, and his sin we bear ; through 
Adam's eating of the fruit of the tree, all the inhabitants of 
the earth became subject to the penalty of death." 1 Paul, 
in the passages before us, takes up these common sentiments 
which were supposed to be clearly taught in the first chapters 
of Genesis, and by asserting them in his character of an in- 
spired Apostle, has fixed upon them the stamp of divine in- 
dorsement and authority. So closely does he view the paral- 

1 Quoted by Gill on Rom. v. 12. S?c also Prin. Theo. Ess. 1st Series. 



Rom. v. 18.] The Imputation of Adam's Sin. 77 

lei in the statement of the two doctrines, that if one is set 
aside both must be. If Adam's sin is not passed over to his 
posterity, then the righteousness of Christ is not reckoned to 
believers, who are Christ's seed as the race is the seed of 
Adam. But if Christ's righteousness does not answer the 
claims of the law on believers, so that by that righteousness put 
to their account they may be treated as just or justified ; then 
if they are justified at all it must be by their own personal and 
inherent righteousness ; and the whole scheme of redemption 
is a nullity, and Christ died in vain so far as all the purposes 
of an atonement are concerned. But it is by the obedience of 
Christ that the believing sinner is counted righteous ; and 
therefore it is by the disobedience of Adam that his race are 
counted sinners. This is the very point of the comparison and 
the contrast ; and in this one particular it is that Adam is 
here said to be the figure or type of Him that was to come. 

Let these passages speak their own language, and there is 
no mistaking their meaning. It is not till men feel themselves 
called upon by some theory, or by an unauthorized sense of re- 
sponsibility to defend the character of God, or shield it from 
the plain statements of his own word, that passages so clear in 
themselves become perplexing and obscure. 

Ever since the days of Pelagius volumes upon volumes have 
been written in the exercise of this mistaken care for God's 
character, or for other reasons, on these passages, with the 
hope of softening down their rugged plainness. But there 
they stand as rugged and as plain as ever ; like a huge 
mountain of granite that rears its head to heaven in testimony 
of some fearful convulsion and upheaving of the earth. The 
winds, and rain and snows, and thunder and lightning have 
for centuries spent their fury upon it, in vain. It still stands, 
and still testifies. So these texts will continue to say and re- 
iterate the saying that, " By the offense of one, judgment came 
upon all men to condemnation ; that through the offense of 
the one, the many are dead." No criticisms, nor critical 
emendations ; no apologetic explanations for the Apostle ; no 
rhetoric ; no mistaken and unauthorized tenderness for the 
character of God ; nor sentimental tenderness for the charac- 
ter of man ; no processes of " explaining away," will lessen one 
iota the stern plainness by which they assert the great and 



78 The Imputation of Adam's Sin. [Serm. IX. 

solemn truth that sentence of condemnation has passed upon 
all men because of the one great sin by which Adam, and the 
race in him, were plunged into ruin. Our view of the mean- 
ing of these passages is confirmed by what we advance as a 
second argument. 

2. The truth of our doctrine is proved by the fact that the 
Scriptures uniformly represent all the descendants of Adam as 
being born into the penalty with which he himself was threat- 
ened, and which he suffered for his first or representative sin. 

The penalty with which Adam was threatened was death. 
" In the day that thou eatest thereof," said Jehovah to him, 
" thou shalt surely die." In the very day that Adam eat of 
the forbidden fruit, he died. Lust conceived in him and 
brought forth sin ; and his sin, when it was finished, brought 
forth death. That which fell upon him, on that day as the pen- 
alty of his sin, was death. He existed on earth for seven hun- 
dred years after he sinned, but if we receive the Word of God 
as true, he existed a dead man, unless and until he was re- 
generated by the Spirit of God. Let it be remembered that 
the dissolution of the body was not once mentioned or recog- 
nized in all this transaction as being death. Death, the penalty 
of his sin, was something wholly independent of bodily exist- 
ence. 

What then is death, we are compelled to inquire, when it 
is, according to the Word of God, the portion of a man yet in 
the full enjoyment of bodily existence ? The Scriptures fur- 
nish an unequivocal answer. " He that heareth my word, and 
believe th on Him that sent me," says our Saviour, " hath ever- 
lasting life, and shall not come into condemnation ; but is 
passed from death unto life." Faith is the instrumentality by 
which a sinner passes from death unto life. But faith is that 
by which the grace of God removes a sinner from under con- 
demnation, displeasure, and wrath, and brings him into the 
favor of God and the enjoyment of pardon. For " He that be- 
lieveth on the Son of God is not condemned, but he that be- 
lieveth not is condemned already, and he shall not see life, but 
the wrath of God abideth on him." To be condemned of God, 
then, as a sinner, and to be under his displeasure, is to be dead. 

Again, the Scriptures declare, " We know that we have passed 
from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that 



Rom. v. 18.] The Imputation of Adam's Sin. 79 

loveth not his brother abideth in death." But in another pas- 
sage we are told that " Every one that loveth is born of God." 
To be born of God, then, is " to pass from death unto life." 
An unregenerate man is a dead man. He has no love to 
God. This is death. 

This was Adam's condition the moment he sinned. He 
was under condemnation, he was under displeasure. The favor 
of God was lost. He had no love to God remaining. His 
heart was wicked. He had chosen himself before God, and 
God abandoned him to himself. And thus he existed a dead 
man, unless — again we say — and until he was regenerated by 
the Spirit of God, and brought out from condemnation into 
justification and pardon and favor, by faith in Him who was 
promised as a Deliverer. 

That death, then, which rests upon a man though he exists 
and moves, and acts and sins, and suffers and enjoys, is com- 
posed, according to the Scriptures, of these two elements : en- 
tire estrangement and alienation of heart from God on the 
one hand, and on the other abandonment of God, the loss of 
his favor. God rejects him, condemns him, and is displeased 
with him. This is death ; and this was Adam's condition the 
day he sinned. This was his penalty for that one sin. 

Now what we say is, that the Scriptures uniformly represent 
all the descendants of Adam as being born into this penalty. 
The penalty is upon them before they have committed actual 
personal sin. To be of Adam born is to be under the displeas- 
ure and abandonment of God. 

" That which is born of the flesh is flesh," says our Lord. 
And, adds the Apostle, " they that are in the flesh cannot 
please God." To be " of Adam born " is to be in the flesh. To 
be of Adam born, therefore, is to be under displeasure of God. 

Again, Paul, writing to the Christian Ephesians, and placing 
himself on the same level with them, says, " We were by na- 
ture the children of wrath, even as others." 

By natural descent from Adam, then, we are abandoned of 
God and condemned. It would be impossible to state in 
clearer or stronger language the fact that men are born into 
penalty. By their very nature they are inheritors of wrath, 
and are therefore dead as Adam was the day that he sinned. 
Sin took his life away and left him with nothing but a carnal 



80 TJie Imputation of Adam's Sin. [Serm. ix. 

existence. His nature was from that moment carnal and not 
spiritual. This nature he sent down to all his offspring ; and 
with the nature the curse that was resting upon it. To be 
born in this nature is to be a sinner ; because none but sinners 
can be children of wrath. But whence comes this wrath ? 
Why this condemnation ? The nature was never on probation, 
so far as the Scriptures instruct us, but in Adam. For whose 
sin, then, but his does this curse rest upon this nature and 
upon all who partake in it ? 

Now, in the light of this passage we are prepared to look 
again at the language of those passages which we have already- 
quoted ; and we shall see that they derive new force in their 
direct statement of , the doctrine of imputation. In the twelfth 
verse of the fifth of Romans, Paul says, " By one man sin 
entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed 
upon all men, for that [or because] all have sinned. " How 
have all sinned that they should be under death ? Actually 
and personally ? Death is on them before they can do this ; 
they are children of wrath by nature. Are they not then 
counted as sinners, and is not the sin of the great head of 
humanity imputed to them ? 

Again, in the nineteenth, verse Paul says, " By the one man's 
disobedience the many were made sinners." How made sin- 
ners ? By imitation ? By following his example ? They are 
treated as sinners before they can imitate. They are children 
of wrath by nature. Did they not then stand, representa- 
tively, by the appointment of God, in Adam, and when he, the 
federal head sinned, were not all his descendants, by this sin, 
made sinners ? 

The whole gospel scheme is based upon this fact, that men 
are born into death, or, which is the same thing, into penalty. 
" Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of 
God." Regeneration is a birth out of nature into grace ; out 
of carnality, and so out of the curse that rests on the carnal 
nature, into spirituality ; out of death into life. It is a trans- 
lation from darkness to light, from the kingdom of Satan, or 
from among the enemies of God into the kingdom of his dear 
Son. It is being created anew in Christ Jesus unto good 
works ; it is, in fine, passing from death unto life. Regener- 
ation is thus the undoing of Adam's work on his posterity. 



Rom. v. 18.] The Imputation of Adam's Sin. 81 

It removes original sin. This is the central truth of the gos- 
pel system, and it is all based on the truth that men are born 
into death (t. e., penalty). Hence it is that Paul says of 
Christ, that if He died for all, then were all dead. He came 
to a race already lost, already in death, and Himself died, i. e., 
came under condemnation and felt all the horrors of abandon- 
ment of God. He thus died, that as many as should receive 
the gift of righteousness in Him, might have life, and have it 
more abundantly. Not only life from the death into which the 
one man's sin had plunged them, but from the death into 
which their own personal and actual trangression had plunged 
them still deeper. Therefore, " if by one man's offense death 
reigned by one ; much more they which receive abundance of 
grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by 
one, Jesus Christ." He was thus made sin for us, " that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 

By the commission of Jesus Christ I am authorized, my 
hearers, to hold out to you to-day, for your acceptance, this 
perfect righteousness, that it may take the place before God, 
and in the eye of his law, of all your sinfulness, and all your 
personal guilt. By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be 
justified in the sight of God. Remaining under law all must 
remain sinners. But the righteousness of God is by faith in 
Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe. Your 
participation in the ruin of Adam was without your personal 
consent. It was so by the righteous appointment of God ; 
but your participation in the righteousness of Christ is, by the 
same righteous Judge, made dependent on your consent, even 
the consent of faith. Though you are yet children of wrath, 
both by nature and by personal transgression, if you are not 
justified in and by the righteousness of Christ, still, God is 
not willing you should perish. His mercy yearns over you ; 
He has demonstrated it by proofs that even you cannot ques- 
tion. For He so loved the world, this same alienated and 
cursed and corrupted world, that He gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish but 
have everlasting life. 



SERMON X. 

THE LAW OF PROVIDENCE TOWARDS THE WRATH OF 

MEN. 



Psalm lxxvi. 10. — Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of 
wrath shalt thou restrain. 

TF the Bible teaches any one doctrine more explicitly than 
-*- another, it is the doctrine that asserts the direct special 
superintendence of God in all the affairs of this world. It does 
not attempt to unfold to the view of men all the methods of 
this superintendence, nor to explain to human comprehension 
all the immediate purposes for which it is exercised, nor the 
particular reasons by which it is governed. The fact alone is 
clearly and fully asserted, and everywhere recognized. Indeed 
the very existence of the Bible, as the Revelation of God, is a 
standing confession and illustration of the doctrine. All its 
statements of the relations of God to men, and of men to God, 
are repetitions of it. Every promise it makes to the good, the 
penitent, and the believing, and every threatening it utters 
against the impenitent and rebellious, and every claim it makes 
upon the hearts and services of men, and every charge of un- 
faithfulness and unworthiness it urges against them, rests upon 
this doctrine as its foundation, and is pervaded by its admission. 
The doctrine of a special and direct providence is the doc- 
trine emphatically of the Bible. It is also, and no less, the 
doctrine of the human soul. It pervades it and governs it. 
In all times, among all classes of men, barbarous or civilized, 
the fundamental idea of a divine direct superintendence has 
held its sway ; and they have not failed in some way to give it 
scope and manifestation. In idolatrous rites, in prayers, in 
oaths even, and in superstitious observances, men bear testi- 
mony always to the inborn conviction of the presence around 
and above them of an interested Power upon whose pleasure 



Ps. ixxvi. 10.] The Law of Providence. 83 

their destinies are more or less suspended. God has not left 
Himself without a witness in the hearts of men more than in 
his Word. The spontaneous prompting of the heart is, as it is 
also the assertion of the Bible, " His kingdom ruleth over all." 
In the silent, mysterious, mighty, and minute processes of na- 
ture, and in the lives of men, both in the prosperity and adver- 
sity of a common and unmarked history, and in the more strik- 
ing and momentous events of a checkered and uncommon career, 
whether of individuals or of nations, both the Bible and the 
human soul recognize and confess without reserve the direct 
agency of an overruling Power. Men may partially obliterate 
this sentiment for a time from their hearts, by a cherished and 
philosophizing skepticism ; or they may deprive it momentarily 
of an active and direct influence by the indulgence of unholy 
passions, but the history of the world and the experience of in- 
dividuals show that the sentiment cannot be wholly eradicated 
from the soul. One vivid flash of heaven's lightning, or one 
angry utterance of its terrible thunder, is oftentimes enough of 
itself to dissipate the most obdurate skepticism and to disarm 
passion of all its deadening power. The approach of death, by 
the sudden casualty that compels its instant realization, or by 
the tempest, or by wasting disease, is almost always sure to rein- 
state in its control over the mind the thought and the belief 
of an immediately ruling Providence. The same potent influ- 
ence is also oftentimes exerted by an hour of serious medita- 
tion, when, for the moment, the heart is compelled by some 
n^sterious spell to be honest with itself ; and also by those 
sudden, solemn, unwelcome reflections, by which the realities 
of a fleeting, but accountable life, and of an approaching judg- 
ment, and eternity, rush in upon the soul, and, like the incom- 
ing of a mighty wave of thought, carry away all the barriers 
it had raised for its security against seriousness and concern. 

As in the case of individuals, so is it with communities and 
nations. The sentiment that bears testimony to an overruling 
God may seemingly die away from the public mind, and lose 
its power over the public conscience. But it will not remain 
dormant. Sooner or later it will awaken and assert its sway. 
The judgments of God in great public calamities ; sudden and 
pressing dangers to the national safety ; the barbarities of un- 
restrained brutality, when passion has unrebuked license in pub- 



84 The Law of Providence [Sekm. x. 

lie men, and an unscrupulous selfishness is enthroned at the 
head of affairs in the persons of weak and wicked rulers ; the 
approach of invading foes, or the development of wide-spread 
and powerful domestic conspiracies, — these and dangers like 
these, which show how little help is in man, are each enough to 
arouse and quicken into lively activity the national sentiment 
of an interested overruling Providence by driving men to that 
Providence for protection and deliverance. The world's history 
abounds with demonstrations of this. In this respect it is true, 
as it is written by the prophet Isaiah, " When the judgments 
of God are in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn 
righteousness." It is enough that when men begin to feel the 
quicksands of all merely human foundations moving from under 
their feet, they instinctively grasp after the support of an un- 
created hand. And this grasping is the soul's confession of an 
ever active and observant providence of God. There is no other 
refuge into which it can flee. The spontaneous cry of the na- 
tional as of the individual's heart is, when the pressing neces- 
sity of overwhelming danger is upon it, " There is no help but 
in God. The arm almighty, that rules over all, must rule for 
our safety or we are ruined." 

This was the confession of the people of God as it was ut- 
tered by the Psalmist in the words of our text. They looked 
back upon the dangers that had just threatened to overwhelm 
them, — probably the invasion by the hosts of Assyria, under 
Sennacherib, — and in view of it, and of their wonderful de- 
liverance, when " God arose to judgment to save all the meek 
of the earth ; " the language of their hearts was that of in- 
spired truth : " Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee : the 
remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." In this divine utter- 
ance, prompted by the Spirit of God, his people gave expression 
to both the doctrine of a direct and special providence of God 
in all the affairs of men, and also to the law of that providence 
in cases like that under consideration. They declared the 
method of God's providence over the unholy passions of men 
when they are aroused and directed against a righteous cause 
or those engaged in maintaining it. The law of God's provi- 
dence in such cases, as it is here declared, is to permit wicked 
and violent men to proceed just so far in their wrathful work 
as will be to his own glory, and then to curb their passions 



Ps. lxxvi. 10.] towards the Wrath of Men. ' 85 

and put them under the strong hand of Providential restraint. 
But inasmuch as the wrath of man, as here spoken of, has its 
manifestation only in wicked plans, purposes, and measures ; 
and as the praise or glory of God is really promoted only by the 
triumph of truth and righteousness, under his government, the 
teaching of the text, — that is, the lesson to be learned from 
this statement of the law of Providence towards the wickedness 
of violence and passion, — is, that wickedness, planned and 
perpetrated against a righteous cause, is, under the govern- 
ment of God, made to advance that cause. 

Whatever mystery may hang over the problem of the exist- 
ence of evil in the government of a holy and almighty God, 
the fact of its existence none question. None question but the 
history of this world exhibits a protracted and yet unended 
contest between good and evil. Sin has risen up to oppose 
holiness ; error often has triumphed over truth ; injustice has 
often hurled justice from its throne, and ruled in its stead ; 
right and equity have often been trodden under foot by tyranny 
and oppression ; brute force directed by wicked hands has come 
in conflict with moral and intellectual strength and felled it to 
the earth with savage ferocity. Inalienable and God-given 
liberty, both civil and religious, has been bound in the fetters 
of despotism ; and the cry of enslaved millions has gone up 
from our world into the ears of a righteous God, calling in tones 
of despairing agony for avenging justice. Crime and cruelty 
have not only prevailed and disfigured the fairest portions of 
earth, but they have been patronized and protected by the de- 
positaries of power, and apologized for and defended by the 
voices and the pens of such as have held high places of influ- 
ence and respectability. 

It has always been so. Wickedness has been a power against 
goodness. The servants and agents of wickedness have always 
been arrayed against the cause and the supporters of right- 
eousness. Whenever men have espoused this cause and avowed 
their allegiance to God in it, wicked men and devils have been 
arrayed in opposition. 

But in the face of all this the teaching of God's Word, as 
found in our text, is that He will overrule all this wicked- 
ness to his own glory, and that wicked opposition itself to the 
cause that is righteous, shall be made to further the interests of 



86 • The Law of Providence [Sebm. x. 

that cause. This we have seen was the declared law of God's 
providence over the wrathful wickedness of men. Wicked- 
ness planned and perpetrated, advances the cause it aims to 
destroy. 

Is the inquiry made, How is this done? By what means 
does God in his providence turn the wrath of men to his own 
praise by making their wickedness serve the cause of truth ? 
The answer is given us only in part. The word of God and 
the history of his dealings with men furnish some particulars 
in reply. They answer, — 

1. That wickedness planned and perpetrated against a right- 
eous cause is made to advance that cause by sometimes calling 
down directly the avenging judgments of God upon the wicked 
perpetrators, and thus removing them from the work of opposi- 
tion and giving the awful sanction of God's manifest interfer- 
ence to the righteous cause. 

Recorded instances are not wanting in the history of men 
when God has thus interposed for a righteous cause and its 
people. The king of Egypt, at the time of Israel's deliverance 
from their bondage in that land, has the immortality of a Scrip- 
tural execration for his acts of cruelty and wickedness against 
the rights of God's people, and the cause they were chosen to 
uphold. Again and again did the avenging judgments of the 
Almighty fall directly upon him for his wickedness ; and when 
he pressed his proud tyranny to the last limit of divine for- 
bearance, God arose in his majesty and swept him from the 
earth. God's people were delivered. The cause of righteous- 
ness was triumphant. The Lord was magnified in the eyes of 
both friends and enemies. The haughty and idolatrous Egypt- 
ians were taught effectually, that Jehovah was God, and the 
people of Israel were brought to fear Him and trust in his 
word and power. 

Another noted instance of a direct avenging judgment upon 
wrathful wickedness, and in furtherance of the righteous cause 
it sets itself to oppose, is the one to which the Psalm that 
contains our text is thought to have special reference. The 
hosts of Assyria came upon Jerusalem and with taunting 
words against Jehovah demnded its surreander. But the king 
of Israel sought the interposition of the Almighty : " Lord, bow 
down thine ear and hear," he prayed ; u Open, Lord, thine eyes 



Ps. lxxvi. 10.] towards the Wrath of Men. 87 

and see : and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent 
Rabshakeh to reproach the living God. O Lord, our God, I 
beseech thee save thou us out of his hand, that all the king- 
doms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even 
thou only." In answer to that prayer God said to the king of 
Assyria by Isaiah the Prophet, " Because thy rage against me, 
and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put 
my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will 
turn thee back, by the way by which thou earnest. For I will 
defend this city to save it, for mine own sake and for my ser- 
vant David's sake." The fulfillment is briefly told. " It came 
to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out, and 
smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and 
five thousand : and when they arose in the morning behold 
they were all dead corpses." 

" Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen : 
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown." 

In the language of Archbishop Leighton, the hook that God 
put in Sennacherib's nostrils to pull him back again, was more 
remarkable than the fetters would have been if he had tied 
him at home and hindered his march with his army. 

The history of the Jews abounds with examples of this kind 
of interposition against the wickedness of his enemies and the 
enemies of his people. And it is in their history, if anywhere, 
we must find the declared examples, for it is only in their his- 
tory God has chosen to declare the directness of his agency in 
the affairs of men. The history of the Jews is especially in- 
tended to set forth and illustrate the principles of God's gov- 
ernment on earth for the support of truth. It is as it were a 
miniature model, exposing to the view of men the operations 
of the providence of God on a scale and under circumstances 
they can comprehend. And all these instances of special in- 
terposition in avenging judgments are but illustrations of the 
general law of Providence which we are considering. He bids 
us see in these examples his interest in the cause of justice and 
of right, and his active favor towards it which cannot in other 
cases be so manifest to our view. For these manifest interposi- 
tions are not the usual methods of God's dealing. Ordinarily 



88 The Law of Providence [Serm. x. 

avenging justice is long delayed. He usually permits men to 
presume very far upon his forbearance before He rises for strict 
judgment. He is not willing that any, even the most violent 
of his enemies, should perish. He waits long that He may 
be gracious. But from the examples of Scripture we have no 
right to affirm -that He does not, even now, sometimes, accord- 
ing to these examples, visit by sudden and direct avenging 
judgments the opposers of his will. 

Yet this is not, we say, the usual method of his providence. 
He usually works out a vindication for down-trodden truth and 
righteousness through the ordinary operation of known and rec- 
ognized intermediate agencies. Hence we remark, — 

2. That the history of God's dealings with men shows us 
that great wickedness perpetrated against a righteous cause 
is sometimes made to farther it, by God in his providence giv- 
ing up the planners and perpetrators to be swayed by their 
passions rather than by prudence. He leaves them to take 
counsel of their desires rather than of their wisdom. Thus 
they bring their own cause into bad repute, expose its baseness, 
and turn the favor of men from it to that which they oppose. 

Passion is always blind, and always suicidal. Its aim is 
gratification, without regard to consequences. But mere self- 
ish gratification blindly pursued, and unchecked by the re- 
straints of reason, is self-consuming. The drunkard, e. g., as 
soon as the voice of wisdom is drowned by the din of his pas- 
sion for strong drink, becomes a hopeless prey to this passion. 
It puts no bounds to itself and has none but gratification, and 
this, thus blindly pursued, inflames the passion yet more and 
more till the wretched victim is consumed by its maddening 
and wasting violence. Thus, too, the passion of avarice, when 
once it has transformed the man on whom it fastens into a 
miser, ever urges him on to its gratification, but snatches the 
very food from his mouth, and the clothes from his body, by 
which his life would be sustained. 

Only give passion its sway without the restraint of wisdom, 
and soon, like an engine given up to the power that propels it, 
and left without the regulating hand of the engineer, it rushes 
madly upon its own ruin. Judas thus took counsel of his 
desires rather than of his wisdom. Behold the madness to 
which they drove him. Julian, the apostate, after his career 



Ps. lxxvi. 10.] towards the Wrath of Men. 89 

of desperate folly striving against the Almighty, was compelled 
to honor God and give his influence for the cause he had 
vainly endeavored to destroy, — u O Galilean, thou hast con- 
quered ! " The Jews, when their city was besieged by the 
Roman general Titus, took counsel only of their desires and 
unauthorized hopes of miraculous deliverance as in ancient 
times. Their desires counseled only suicidal madness. So 
clearly recognized was this principle of the divine administra- 
tion, that even the heathen marked it, and embodied it in a 
proverb that has come down to our own times, that " whom the 
gods intend to destroy they first make mad." Unholy desires 
overriding and trampling down the judgment and the reason, 
make this madness. God withdraws the gracious restraints of 
his hand, and blind passion has its maniac sway. This is the 
case of every sinner, who, by continued impenitency, rejects 
the claims of God. The command goes forth from the throne 
of mercy itself, " Let him alone, he is joined to his idols." No 
condition of one in this world so fearful. To be given up of 
God to the idols of his heart, to hasten on to his own destruc- 
tion under their blind guidance ; to be pressed forward to ruin 
by their urgency — wretched state! The avenging judgment 
of God already fallen upon the obdurate sinner, who, in the 
providence of God, becomes his own destroyer ! 

3. But there is yet a third and perhaps more common way 
in which great wickedness is, in the providence of God, made 
to further the righteous cause it aims to destroy. God permits 
the perpetrators of it so far to succeed in their wickedness that 
it recoils with reactive violence upon themselves, by arousing a 
spirit of just opposition and provoking a severe retaliation. 

As passion is suicidal, so wickedness is ever reactive. In- 
deed this reactive characteristic is what gives to wicked passion 
its suicidal power. It turns its violence back upon him who 
commits it. In these cases, 

" We still have judgment here ; that we but teach 
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return 
To plague the inventor : this even-handed justice 
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice 
To our own lips." 

All wickedness committed against others, especially the just 
and those sustaining a righteous cause, is injustice. It is the 



90 The Law of Providence [Skrm. x. 

assumption of an unauthorized and unlawful control over the 
person and right of its victims. But the soul of man is so con- 
stituted that it cannot but resent flagrant injustice. It cannot 
brook it. Sooner or later such injustice will rouse opposition, 
not only in the heart of the personally injured, but in the 
hearts of all observers, who are not themselves the injurers 
either by direct participation in the wickedness, or indirectly 
by sharing in the gains of the wrong-doing. The injured and 
the innocent will be moved to indignation, and ultimately to 
open, determined, and perhaps offensive as well as defensive 
opposition. God has wisely placed this rein of restraint on the 
neck of human power, and given to injured humanity the heart 
to draw that rein down when a just resentment is provoked. 
The oppressed may long endure the cruel weight that despot- 
ism puts upon them, but all experience shows that the elements 
of reaction will in time be called forth, and there is no ven- 
geance like that of the long injured and oppressed under the 
hand of unholy power. Who has not heard and read verifica- 
tions of this truth in instances falling out almost daily in social 
life, and often in civil ? The feeble and timid arm of woman , 
how often has it been nerved by the burning thought of her 
injured innocence, her tarnished honor, and her betrayed con- 
fidence, to wield with daring and fatal energy the weapons of 
of death against her betrayer ! How often has the throb of 
manly resentment animated the heart of a slave on whose brow 
God had set his own signet of freedom, to strike the master, 
who held him in unholy bonds, dead at his feet ! Nor are the 
instances rare in which a whole community of such slaves have 
thus vindicated their title to manhood in attempts to tear oft' 
the iron grasp of a cruel task-master from their necks. It was 
the increasing tyranny, and the heavier and heavier burdens 
laid upon the bondmen in Egypt, that made them at length 
read} 7 to free themselves at the bidding of God from their en- 
slavers, and become the instruments of their enslavers' ruin. 
Hainan, Mordecai, Jews. It was the same principle at work 
upon the Commons of England that at last, in 1649, cost 
Charles the First his life, and exacted such fearful vengeance 
of the English nobility. In the same principle, likewise, did our 
own civil freedom and independent national existence have 
their beginning. Grasping too much, and enforcing her claims 



Ps. lxxvi. 10.] towards the Wrath of Men. 91 

with wicked hands, England lost her colonies and her revenues, 
and was driven to the humiliation of treating with despised 
dependents as victorious equals. The measures of tyranny were 
permitted to go so far, and to become so far successful, that 
they recoiled with increased force upon itself; and thus ad- 
vanced, with a rapidity we can poorly estimate, the great and 
holy cause of freedom and righteousness against which it had 
been arrayed. 

Inference. 1. This being the law of providential control of 
the wickedness of men in all the past, we infer that the friends 
of any righteous cause have no reason to despair of its success. 
God does not change. The laws of his providence do not 
change. In Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. 
He is the same yesterday and to-day and forever. As in the 
past, so now the law of his providence falls upon and controls 
in every deed of violence, in every scheme of unholiness, and 
in every wicked purpose conceived or executed. The cause of 
righteousness against which the wrath of man is aimed may 
now, as in former times, seem checked — seem destroyed — 
crushed out of being ; but the law of providence towards the 
wrath of man, as illustrated in the past, and asserted in God's 
Word, shows us that it will yet rise and advance, furthered on, 
even, by the means which had seemed to destroy it. The 
cause of human freedom, e. g., may be often crushed down. 
It is the instinctive prompting of the power that opposes it to 
put forth all its energies to hinder and destroy it. The hand 
that can lay the iron yoke of slavery upon the neck of man and 
of woman and bind it there, can also, and will, deal iron blows 
against him who would remove that yoke and bid the oppressed 
go free. But its blows will nevertheless be often paralyzed by 
the interposition of a God who loves righteousness ; sometimes 
it will expend its violence in vain in the blindness of its own 
passion ; and at length, if it continue, it must rouse in banded 
and desperate hostility the multitudes upon whom its blighting 
influence directly and indirectly fall. The past few years have 
given us instances of each of these methods of Divine Provi- 
dence in dealing against this stupendous wickedness. The 
slave trade was at a favorable providence-chosen moment sup- 
pressed by being put in the rank of piracy, and outlawed by 
almost the whole civilized world. This is the avenging inter- 



92 The Law of Providence [Serm. x. 

position of Providence in behalf of freedom. The enactment 
of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the removal of the Missouri 
Compromise restriction, it does not require great discernment 
to see, were the acts of men given up to the counsel of their 
desires, rather than their discretion. What effect has been 
produced upon every freeman's mind by every instance of the 
execution of the Fugitive Slave Law ? Has not his hatred of 
slavery been intensified ? Has not every slave who has been 
hunted down on free soil added hundreds to the ranks of com- 
mitted and active advocates for liberty ? The policy that de- 
vised and urged that law to its enactment, and gloried in its 
execution, is revealed to have been strangely, suicidally unwise 
for its own ends. I need not point out the many evidences we 
have had, and are having, of the same demented policy that 
devised and pressed through with such indecent haste the 
Kansas-Nebraska act. It was designed to open still greater 
areas to slavery ; but freedom will, under the very act itself, 
snatch them from the grasp of slavery. The wrath of man 
bent on human oppression, and the civil and religious degrada- 
tion of millions yet unborn, is in fair prospect of turning to the 
praise of God in the triumph of the cause of freedom, and of 
civil, social, and religious elevation. The acts following this, — 
acts of lawlessness which the barbarous tribes of the wilderness 
or of the desert would blush to confess as their own ; acts of 
wanton insolence and robbery ; acts of treachery, and of sys- 
tematized anarchy, — these on the free people of a free ter- 
ritory, and then on unprotected and unoffending individuals 
at the seat of government, acts of lawless violence — and on a 
senator who dared speak the promptings of a true and noble 
soul, on him fell the blows of the assassin. And all because 
the wrathful wickedness of the slave power was rebuked. 
These indicate the last step to which God permits the wrath of 
man to go in an unholy cause. It may commit other acts of 
the same kind. More of its fury may be necessary to suffi- 
ciently rouse and fuse the minds of freemen for harmonious 
and determined action. It has required already thirty years 
or more of incessant toil, under just such displays, to bring out 
and sustain a sentiment and a purpose that now begin to give 
signs of promise. And the law of Providence still operates. 
The very wickedness against which this law is arrayed has 



Ps. lxxvi. 10 ] towards the Wrath of Men. 93 

been doing the work that Providence has ordered it to accom- 
plish, and never can the evil become so enormous or defiant 
that this law cannot reach and govern it : " The wrath of man 
shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath shalt thou 
restrain." 

2. It behooves each one to see to it that he is on the side of 
God and righteousness. He can be so fully only by reconcilia- 
tion with God — forgiveness through Christ. Otherwise, in- 
dulging enmity towards Him, our very enmity must be turned 
against ourselves, in vindication of Him against whom we are 
arrayed. All are under bondage of sin, Christ offers us free- 
dom in eternal deliverance ; and whom the Son makes free, 
is free indeed. The terms are simple, the conditions easy : 
" Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man 
his thoughts ; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will 
have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly 
pardon." 



SERMON XT. 

THE DUTY OF SINNERS TO MAKE THEM A NEW HEART. 



Ezekiel xviii. 31. — Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have 
transgressed ; and make you a new heart and a new spirit : for why will ye die, 
house of Israel ? 

HP HIS was the command of God to men who were living in 
-*- sin ; yet complaining of the evils which their sins were 
bringing upon them. They charged these evils as an injustice 
upon God. " The way of the Lord is not equal," they said. 
God answers, " Are not my ways equal ? Are not your ways 
unequal ? " He charges this home upon them, and shows them 
that the evils of which they complain are the fruit, not of his 
injustice, but of their own sins, and of nothing else. If they 
will break off from these, the tree that bore the evil fruit shall 
disappear, and they shall have good for evil. Hence He de- 
clares, " When the wicked turneth away from his wickedness 
that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and 
right, he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth, and 
turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath commit- 
ted he shall surely live, he shall not die." The command of 
the text is issued with this statement in view : u Cast away 
from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, 
and make you a new heart and a new spirit : for why will ye 
die, O house of Israel ? " *They were thus enjoined to cease 
doing that which must bring death in its train, and so to turn 
their hearts away from it as to remain free from its further 
commission. 

God was here dealing with the house of Israel, not simply as 
Israelites, but as sinners. This is clear from the fact that in 
pointing out to them the cause of their ruin, and showing them 
their duty, He takes them back to these fundamental princi- 
ples of moral character and conduct which are common to all 



Ez. xviii. 31 ] Duty of Sinners — A New Heart. 95 

moral beings. The command which He utters is based upon 
these fundamental principles. It is therefore as applicable to 
all transgressions of the law of God as it was to the house of 
Israel, and is the measure of the duty which all sinners owe 
to God and their own souls. 

This is the light in which the context compels us to regard 
the command before us : It is the measure of a sinner's duty. 
It sets his duty before him in three particulars, by heeding 
which he will secure both perfection of character and eternal 
life. 

First, the words before us make it plain that it is the duty 
of sinners to break off from and forsake the commission of all 
sin : " Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye 
have transgressed." 

The fact that this is commanded by the Almighty both re- 
veals and enforces it as an immediate duty. We must admit 
that his command runs parallel with duty, and measures it in 
the matter commanded, or we must deny that He has author- 
ity to issue the command. If we admit the moral perfection of 
the divine character and his authority over moral beings, then 
obedience to every divine command is the solemn and immedi- 
ate duty of every one to whom the command comes. 

Besides, that the command which we are considering is the 
measure of a sinner's duty, and binds him to cease at once from 
the commission of all sin, both our own consciences and the 
Word of God fully proclaim. Every conscience intuitively de- 
cides that the wrong-doer ought at once to stop doing wrong. 
It is a contradiction to every man's moral sense, and an oblit- 
eration of the very idea of conscience, to say that it is right for 
a wrong-doer to continue to do wrong, — no matter what the 
wrong may be that he is committing. But if it is not right 
for a wrong-doer to continue to do wrong, then it is his duty to 
cease from doing it. It cannot but be his duty to do that which 
he ought to do, and certainly he ought to do right, and not 
wrong. 

Now this is just what the text commands, in opposition to 
the theory and practice of every impenitent sinner who justi- 
fies himself one moment in his impenitence. The Almighty 
says to him, " Cast away from you all your transgressions, 
whereby ye have transgressed." Transgression is sin ; and all 



96 Duty of Sinners — A New Heart. [Serm. xi. 

sin, whatever it may be, is wrong-doing. To cast away trans- 
gression is, therefore, to cast away wrong-doing, — to break off 
and cease from its commission. In other words, to cast away 
transgression is to stop doing wrong. 

The Bible here joins with and gives new power to conscience 
and common sense. It is a fundamental element in all its 
moral teachings that nothing can justify any wrong-doer, what- 
ever his wrong may be, in continuing in it a single moment. 
Its unvarying and universal command to sinners of every grade 
is, " Put away from you the evil of your doings from before 
mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well." " Let the wicked 
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." 
" Break off your sins by righteousness, and return unto the 
Lord." 

The gospel lays the obligation still more open, and makes 
the duty still more plain. By its first great command the duty 
of repentance is made peremptory and immediate. But an 
essential element of repentance, that without which there is no 
repentance in any given instance, is ceasing to do the wrong 
repented of. This ceasing from doing wrong is as necessary a 
part of repentance as was the turning of his face homeward, 
and forsaking the service of the heathen swine-herd, a part of 
the prodigal son's return to his father's house. When, there- 
fore God, by the gospel, commands all men everywhere to re- 
pent, He demonstrates it to be their duty to cease from sin, — 
to stop doing anything that is wrong. 

Conscience and common sense are thus everywhere sus- 
tained by the Bible in insisting upon it that it is the duty of 
sinners to sin no more. In whatever their sin consists they 
are without excuse for continuing in it for one moment. There 
is no plea upon which they can justify themselves, unless they 
can show that wrong is right, and that to do wrong is to do 
right. 

2. Another fact established by the words before us is, that it 
is the duty of sinners to cease to love that which is wrong, and 
to love that which is right. In other words it is their duty to 
cease from the indulgence of unholy affections, and to exercise 
those affections that are holy. This is established by the 
second part of the command, " Make you a new heart." 

The word " heart," when it is used of the soul, commonly 



Ez. xviii. 31.] Duty of Sinners — A New Heart. 97 

indicates the affections. A man's heart, in such cases, is his 
affections ; or more properly speaking, the seat of his affections. 
It is that capability of a moral being by which he loves and 
hates moral objects. It is, therefore, the centre of his spiritual 
being, the source of his moral life, and that which gives charac- 
ter to all his moral acts. This what our Saviour teaches when 
he says, " Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, 
adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies." 
Jeremiah refers to the same central and controlling agency 
of the heart when he says, " It is deceitful above all things and 
desperately wicked." Solomon teaches the same truth when 
he says, " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are 
the issues of life." 

It is to the moral nature what the physical heart is to the 
body. It sends to the remotest extremities of it, and to every 
particle of its substance, that which is to be its life or death, its 
health or disease. In the one case, as in the other, whether in 
the spiritual or the physical nature, if the energies which the 
heart sends out are healthful all is well ; if they are poisonous 
all is ill. That is, if the blood with which the physical heart 
animates and sustains the body is what it ought to be, the 
body will have life and health ; if it is not what it ought to be, 
there will be disease, suffering, and death. So if the love with 
which the spiritual heart animates and sustains the spiritual 
being is right, such as it ought to be, there will be spiritual 
health and life ; but if it is not what it ought to be, there will 
be spiritual disease and death. 

As the physical heart ought to send out only that which is 
right and healthful, so ought also the spiritual heart. But 
there is as much difference in the ought of the one and of the 
other as there is in their natures. The one is physical, the 
other is moral. The ought of the one is a physical necessity, 
that of the other is a moral obligation. The ought in the one 
case implies no responsibility, necessarily, on the part of the 
one spoken of. In the other case the ought charges the entire 
responsibility upon him. Though a man ought to have good 
blood circulated through his body by his heart, he is not neces- 
sarily blameworthy if his blood is altogether bad. But when 
we say of him that the love or hatred which he indulges to- 
wards moral good and evil, or towards anything, when his love 



98 Duty of Sinners — A New Heart. [Serm. xi 

or hate is a moral act, ought to be right and not wrong, we 
understand, and our consciences and judgments will not allow 
us to understand anything else, but that if it is not rignt he is 
guilty. It ought to be right, for it is his duty to love that 
which is morally good, and to exercise that love which it is 
right for him to have ; and he is blameworthy if he does not : 
and it is his duty to hate that which is morally wrong, and he 
is guilty if he does not. For example, if a man hates truth 
and justice and fair dealing, he does wrong. He is guilty. It 
is his duty to love these, and to hate falsehood and injustice 
and wrong dealing ; and you cannot divest yourselves of the 
conviction that the whole responsibility of his love or hatred in 
this matter is upon himself. You cannot but consider him 
worthy of censure and condemnation if he loves that which it 
is wrong for him to love, or hates that which he ought to love. 

And you are not alone in this judgment. The whole world 
judges as you do. The whole system of human jurisprudence, 
and the laws, whether written or prescriptive, that govern in 
all social and business and civil relations, are based upon this 
great and universally recognized principle, that a man ought to 
love right and hate wrong, and that he is guilty, and ought to 
be treated as guilty, if he does not. The whole world will say 
that if a man hates righteousness he does wrong. They will 
say that he ought to love it, and that he is a wicked man and 
is blameworthy if he does not. In all their intercourse with 
each other, men act on this principle, and no plea ever justifies 
any sane man if he loves not that which is right. 

Now this, as we understand it, is the ground upon which the 
command before us rests for its authority over the sinner's con- 
science. When he is commanded to make him a new heart, if 
he understands the meaning of the words, his conscience binds 
him to obedience as a solemn and immediate duty. The Al- 
mighty deals with him in perfect harmony with the dictates of 
his moral sense, and just as he himself deals with those over 
whom it is his province to exercise moral government. The 
command, " Make you a new heart," which God lays upon 
him, is the same that he would lay upon one under his author- 
ity when he directed him to cease to love that which is wrong 
and begin to love that which is right. A change of heart consists 
in this very thing. A new heart is one that loves right and hates 



Ez. xviii. 31.] Duty of Sinners — A JWezv Heart. 99 

wrong, whereas the old heart loved wrong and hated right. 
Herein is the necessity for the commanded change. The sinner 
is doing what he ought not to do, loving wrong and hating 
righteousness, and he is commanded by Jehovah to do it no 
more, but do at once what he ought to do, — love that which it 
is right for him to love, and hate that which he ought to hate. 

I find nothing else commanded in the words before us. God 
was remonstrating with sinners because of their wrong-doing, 
and nothing else. He justified Himself against their complaints 
that his ways were wrong, by showing them that his ways 
were, on the contrary, all right, and theirs wrong. Then He 
expostulates with them and warns them not to continue in 
ways that must end in their utter ruin. 

The command by which He does this, though in three parts, 
is all one, and all included in the first member of it : u Cast 
away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have trans- 
gressed." This one clause covers the whole ground, in fact. 
But lest the minds of those addressed should linger upon the 
outward acts only of transgression, and not follow the command 
down into the depths of the soul, the other clause is added, 
necessarily carrying the mind inward, and requiring it to look 
upon the transgressions of the heart as well as those of the 
life. The wrong-doing of both is alike a transgression ; that 
of the latter, indeed, only the development and manifesta- 
tion of that of the former. So that a sinner cannot put away 
all his transgressions unless he puts away those of his heart, as 
well as those of outward conduct. The same reasoning, there- 
fore, by which the obligation of the first command is shown, 
shows also that of the second. The fact that a wrong state 
and exercise of the heart are transgressions settles the whole 
question. A man has no right to transgress with his heart 
any more than he has to transgress with his head or his hands. 
Until, therefore, it can be right for a man to do wrong it will 
be his duty to cease indulging wrong affections and have those 
that are right. But to cease from having and indulging wrong 
affections and to have and indulge those that are right is to 
have a new heart. So far, then, as a sinner does his duty in 
ceasing from wrong-doing with his heart, and doing right with 
it, so far he obeys the command before us, and makes him a 
new heart. This is the same thing that we asserted as one of 



100 Duty of Sinners — A Neiv Heart. [Serm. xi. 

tile lessons of our text, that it is the duty of sinners to cease 
to love wrong, and to love right. 

3. It will not be necessary for us to dwell on the third par- 
ticular of this command, " Make you a new spirit." If we 
read the context carefully we shall see that the new spirit re- 
quired of the sinners here addressed, — and the same is required 
of all sinners, — is, that they have and be influenced by a right 
temper of mind instead of a wrong one. The house of Israel 
were querulous, fault-finding, peevish, and fretful, throwing the 
blame of their ills, like a peevish and unreasonable child, off 
from themselves upon God. They were self -excusing and proud. 
The thing required of them was that they should condemn 
themselves wherein they were guilty, and be humble in view 
of their wickedness. In other words, to bring the whole matter 
to a single point, they were required to be honest and honorable 
and manly. Their spirit was a dishonest and an unmanly one. 
All their querulousness and fault-finding and self-excusing and 
censure of the Almighty, were simple dishonesty. They knew 
they were in the wrong, but were not willing to confess it. The 
new spirit God demanded of them was a spirit of honesty and 
honorableness, instead of that under which they were acting. 

The moral sense of every man pronounces in favor of this 
requirement. No man has a right — and all men feel this to 
be true — to be dishonest, or to let this evil temper or spirit 
have sway in his mind. We are brought thus to the same 
position and proof to which the other clauses of the one com- 
mand have led us, that because it is the duty of every man to 
cease to do wrong and to do right, and because it is wrong for 
him to be governed by a wrong spirit or temper, therefore it is 
his duty, the duty of every sinner, to cease to have and exer- 
cise such a spirit, and to have and exercise one that is honest 
and true and becoming. 

The applicability of this clause of the command to all sinners 
is manifest the moment that we look at the reasons they give 
for remaining in sin. There is ever a falsehood at the bottom 
of them. There is a want of honest dealing with God and 
their own souls. In one form or another they almost invariably 
attempt to shift off the responsibility of their guilt from them- 
selves to God, as did the house of Israel. They are querulous, 
self-excusing, proud, and self-willed, whereas they ought to be 



Ez. xviii. 31.] Duty of Sinners — A New Heart. 101 

self-condemning, humble, and submissive. But to say they 
ought to be of this temper is to say that it is their duty to be. 
Thus we find the divine command before us is, like all other 
such commands, the measure of the duty of those to whom it 
is addressed. God commands nothing of sinners that they 
ought not to do. It is their duty to cease to do wrong and to 
do right in all circumstances and on all occasions. It is their 
duty to love righteousness and hate iniquity, whatever the 
righteousness or the iniquity may be. A man is wicked just 
to the extent that he loves wickedness. It is the duty of sin- 
ners to have and exercise a right spirit in their dealings with 
all, with themselves, with their fellow men, and with God. 
They have no right to have, and to be governed by, a wrong 
spirit. It is their duty, therefore, to cast away from them all 
their transgressions whereby they have transgressed; and to 
make them a new heart and a new spirit. God commands 
them to do it. It is their duty to obey. 

1. In the light of this subject we see the awful guilt of im- 
penitence. " God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." 
To remain impenitent is to disobey this command. And to 
disobey this command is to determine not to cast away trans- 
gressions, not to cease from wrong-doing, but to cling to it, 
and practice it, though the Almighty commands the contrary. 

With what justness did our Lord say to sinners, " Except 
ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 

2. We see also the folly and ruinousness of refusing to be- 
lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a faithful saying and 
worthy of all acceptation, that He came into the world to save 
sinners. If left to themselves they will perish. For, with all 
their responsibilities on them, and with all the capabilities 
necessary to make them responsible, they are yet lost, so lost 
that He only can deliver them. They will continue to love 
sin, and to commit it, and to have and exercise a wrong and 
deceitful spirit, unless the Lord Jesus Christ has mercy upon 
them and saves them, even from their own selves. He only 
can deliver them from the guilt of ruining their own souls 
eternally. 

The very thing the Saviour came into the world to do was 
to save sinners from perpetrating their own ruin. He did not 
come to help them save themselves ; by supplementing their 



102 Duty of Sinners — A New Heart. [Serm. XL 

powers with grace, — He came to save them. He is able to 
save to the uttermost, — that is, to the full extent of their 
need, all that come unto God by Him ; and this He will do. 

There is thus no help for you but in the grace and mercy 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

From a higher level than that occupied by the prophet 
when he wrote our text ; a level as much higher as the gospel 
is higher than the Mosiac law ; as much higher as the fulfill- 
ment is higher than the type and the promise ; as much higher 
as the blossom and the fruit are in advance of the germ and 
the bud, I call upon you in the name of Christ to turn at 
once to Him for mercy. I have his own authority for it that 
you cannot come to Him in vain. To as many as come, his 
word is pledged that He will give them power " to become the 
sons of God." That which, in your own strength, you never 
will do, — " make you a new heart and a new spirit," — this 
will be done by his grace for every one who looks for it to 
the Lord who is exalted a Prince and a Saviour to give repent- 
ance and remission of sins. " He that believeth on the Son 
hath everlasting life ; but he that believeth not on the Son 
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth in him." 



SERMON XII. 

THE SINNER'S INABILITY TO COME TO CHRIST. 



John vi. 44. — No man can come to me, except the Father who hath sent me draw him. 

THIS was said to cavilers. Frivolous and fretful men had 
heard the discourse of Jesus, regarding his true charac- 
ter, and the great purpose of his mission to this world ; and 
their response to his solemn and momentous words was the 
querulous and peevish remark, " Is not this Jesus the son of 
Joseph, whose father and mother we know ? How is it then 
that He saith, I came down from heaven ? " As though this 
had anything to do with the matter in hand, or affected, in 
the least, the truths that He was uttering, or lessened their 
importance ! Jesus had said, " I am the bread of life ; he that 
cometh to me shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on me 
shall never thirst." He had set this truth forth the day be- 
fore by a most lively and impressive figure in the miraculous 
feeding of five thousand persons with " five barley loaves and 
two small fishes," and had thus, as by other miracles, and by 
the whole tenor of his life and teachings, rendered it impossi- 
ble for any candid and serious mind to receive his words 
with levity or captiousness. Whatever his parentage, or his 
earthly connections and history, these things were infinitely 
more than enough to outweigh them all, and put them beyond 
consideration in estimating the value of his words. They who 
could think of them, at such a moment, and bring them for- 
ward as invalidating his testimony regarding himself, showed 
themselves irreclaimable triflers and hopelessly insensible to all 
the appeals that the truth could make to their reasons or their 
consciences. 

Our Saviour's reply to these men was a severe rebuke ; and 
yet it seems deeply tinged with sadness. Looking upon their 



104 The Sinner s Inability to come to Christ. [Sekm. xn. 

stupidity and self-conceit, He beheld them both guilty and 
helpless. They were too thoroughly wedded to folly, and too 
much in love with themselves, to give any encouragement to 
hope that they would ever become wise or humble enough 
to learn the truth, or be willing to seek for it where alone it 
could be found, in the Son of God. Hence He said to them, 
" Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, 
except the Father who hath sent me draw him. Every man 
that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto 
me." All who have not thus heard and learned of the Father 
are too much filled with self-conceit, too little regardful of the 
truth, too unconcerned about the great interests of their souls, 
to have any disposition either to heed the lessons of wisdom 
which the Saviour teaches, or to come to Him for salvation. 
They cannot come to Him while they continue to cherish self- 
conceit, and pride, and trifling, and captiousness, and love of 
sin. 

Let us give heed to these sad and too little regarded words 
of our Lord : " No man can come to me except the Father 
who hath sent me draw him." 

1. I remark, in the first place, that this declaration is in per- 
fect harmony with what the Scriptures throughout teach regard- 
ing the helplessness of men who are in sin ; and regarding the 
efficient cause of their salvation, if they are ever saved. With- 
out lessening in the least the guilt of human sinfulness, but, 
on the contrary, greatly enhancing it, the Scriptures represent 
all men as finding so much pleasure in sin, and as loving it 
so well, and being so desperately devoted to it, that they are 
in absolute hopelessness unless gracious influences come upon 
them, causing them to taste somewhat of the bitterness of the 
cup that sin puts to their lips, turning their love into hatred of 
it and winning their devotion to holiness in its stead. The gist 
of their teachings on this subject is contained in those noted 
words of the Apostle Paul, so full of meaning, reaching so far 
down into the secret recesses of the soul, and revealing so 
clearly the active cause, and the fearful responsibility, of sin- 
ful preferences and conduct. " The carnal mind is enmity 
against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither 
indeed can be. So, then, they that are in the flesh cannot 
please God." "The natural man receiveth • not the things of 



John vi. 44.] The Sinner ] s Inability to come to Christ. 105 

the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him ; neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Our 
Saviour's words to Nicodemus are of the same import : u Ver- 
ily, verity, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." 

This is the condition of men who are under the dominion of 
sin. While they are under this dominion, and give themselves 
up to its sway in their hearts and over their lives, they cannot 
understand and feel the force of divine truth, nor be conformed 
in life to its requirements. While they are cherishing sin, and 
giving themselves up to the indulgence of it, they cannot desire 
to be delivered from it ; nor can they come to Christ, either for 
salvation or discipleship and service. 

Not only so, they not only cannot come to Christ while they 
are in such a state of mind, but they will always remain in this 
state of mind unless God delivers them from it by the power of 
his grace. If men are ever saved from sin it is by the gracious 
interposition of God in their behalf. They are graciously 
drawn to the Saviour by the Father who sent Him. This is 
the uniform teaching of the Scriptures regarding the moving 
and efficient cause of a sinner's salvation. There is no other 
such cause but the influence of God's grace turning him from 
sin, and drawing him to Jesus Christ as a Saviour. Until God 
sends down this influence and sheds it upon the sinner's heart 
by the Holy Spirit, he remains in love with sin, and averse to 
holiness. He does not want the salvation that is offered to 
him in Jesus Christ, and he will make no effort to secure it. 

A few passages of the Scriptures touching this point will in- 
dicate with sufficient distinctness their general drift, and show 
their entire harmony with the words of the Saviour that are in 
our text : " Except the Father who sent me draw him." " As 
many as received Him," so says the evangelist John, " to them 
gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that 
believe on his name : who were born, not of blood, nor of the will 
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." The Apostle 
James says of the Father : " Of his own will begat He us, with 
the word of truth." The Apostle Paul, writing to the Ephe- 
sians says : " You hath He made alive, who were dead in tres- 
passes and sins. For by grace are ye saved through faith ; and 
that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God : not of works, 



106 The Sinner's Inability to come to Christ. [Serm. xn. 

lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus unto good works." And to Titus he 
writes : " Not by works of righteousness which we have done, 
but according to his mercy He saved us, by the washing of 
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed 
on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." 

It is not necessary to quote further passages of this descrip- 
tion. The Bible abounds with them, and all its teachings 
respecting the elements of a sinner's salvation, and the manner 
and causes by which he is saved, positively declare, or distinctly 
imply the same things. Salvation is gracious : Jesus Christ is 
the author, as well as the finisher of each believer's faith ; if 
men are left to themselves, and not convinced of sin, and 
renewed by the Holy Spirit, they remain in impenitency and 
unbelief. 

Hence it is that we find that the Apostles and all inspired 
preachers of the gospel went to their work hoping for success 
in winning men to Christ, and saving them from sin, only 
through the special intervention of God in bestowing the con- 
victing and converting influences of the Holy Spirit on those 
to whom they preached. Their spirit of dependence on God 
was always like that which Paul manifested when he rebuked 
the Corinthians for their partisan and man-worshipping spirit 
in making, some, one minister of Christ ; and some, another, 
their spiritual head ; and ascribing to him the saving efficacy 
that followed his preaching. " Who then is Paul, and who 
Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord 
gave to every man ? I have planted, Apollos watered ; but 
God gave the increase ; " and like that which he showed when 
he wrote to Timothy respecting those for whom he was labor- 
ing : " If God peradventure will give them repentance, to the 
acknowledging of the truth ; and they may recover themselves 
out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at 
his will." 

Hence, also, it was that they went forth to their work with 
much and earnest prayer ; and earnestly seeking to secure the 
prayers of other Christians in their behalf. Their writings 
show clearly that they had no hope in any other instrumen- 
tality, if the instrumentality of prayer were not employed. 
They never forgot the lesson that the Lord taught them when 



John vi. 44.] The Sinner's Inability to come to Christ. 107 

He directed them to " remain in Jerusalem until they were 
endued with power from on high ; " and then, in answer to their 
united and continued supplications, poured out his Spirit upon 
them, and upon those who heard them on the day of Pentecost. 
From that hour onward their own prayers went up without 
ceasing to God for his blessing upon their labors, and their 
constant exhortation to other believers was, " Brethren, pray 
for us that the word of the Lord may have free course and be 
glorified." Their own prayers, and their earnest entreaties for 
the prayers of their brethren were the same confession, in 
another form, that Paul made to the Corinthians, that nothing 
they could say or do would bring any man to repentance, and 
the acknowledging of the truth, if God should withhold the 
gracious influence of his Spirit. They were the expression of a 
solemn conviction that never left them, nor became faint and 
uncertain in their minds, that Jesus Christ was exalted a Prince 
and a Saviour, to give repentance, as well as remission of sins ; 
and that nothing but his grace could open any sinner's heart to 
receive the truth. 

2. I remark again that the experiences of converted men, as 
they are given in the Scriptures, are in harmony with these 
words of our Saviour. They all acknowledge a depth and 
desperateness of sinfulness that made them powerless without 
divine grace ; and ascribe their recovery to holiness — their 
coming to God and salvation — to the fact that God drew 
them and made them "willing in the day of his power." God 
saw them in their guilt and helplessness ; He had thoughts of 
mercy toward them ; He came to their deliverance ; He re- 
newed them by his Spirit ; He delivered them from the power 
of darkness, and translated them into the kingdom of his dear 
Son. 

The Psalms especially, and the Epistles, abound with the 
expressions of such experiences. Both Psalmists and Apostles 
are constantly looking back to a period of guilty helplessness, 
when they were without God and without hope, and finding in 
their deliverance from that fearful state, cause for overflowing 
gratitude and never-ceasing thanksgiving. Look at a few of 
these expressions : David says of God, " He brought me up 
also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet 
upon a rock and established my goings. And He hath put a 



108 The Smner's Liability to come to Christ. [Serm. xii. 

new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God." " He sent 
from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters, He 
delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which 
hated me : for they were too strong for me." " Thou hast de- 
livered my soul from death." 

The Apostle Paul, referring to his own conversion in par- 
ticular, says : " God, who commanded the light to shine out of 
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 
This was the method of his salvation. Up to that time he was, 
he intimates, in the same condition as those whom he mentions 
in the verse but one before this, " In whom the god of this 
world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the 
light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them." 
For, as he says in another place, " We were by nature the chil- 
dren of wrath even as others — among whom we all had our 
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the 
desires of the flesh, and of the mind." Contrasting his pres- 
ent with his past, when he was writing to the Corinthians he 
exclaimed, " By the grace of God I am what I am ; and his 
grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain." And 
with the same contrast in his mind he says to the Galatians, 
" It pleased God, who called me by his grace, to reveal his Son 
in me." 

With the mind that he had when he started for Damascus 
he could not know the Son of God, nor come *to Him for light 
and salvation. But God called him by his grace. God ar- 
rested him in his career of guilt. God drew him to Jesus 
Christ, and revealed to him the glory and excellency of his 
Son. 

The other writers of the New Testament express themselves 
in the same strain. There is no need to quote their words 
further. Every one traces all his salvation back to the mercy 
of God in coming to his deliverance when he was guilty and 
helpless and ruined ; and drawing him by the gracious influ- 
ence of his Spirit to the Redeemer, not only for salvation but 
to leam of Him, to receive Him as the manifestation of God, 
and to serve Him with the willing consecration of an all-absorb- 
ing love. 

Nor, we may remark in passing, has Christian experience 



John vi. 44.] The Sinners Inability to come to Christ. 109 

changed. It is the same still. Where tliere is a Christian 
experience there is a past of wretchedness and guilt and help- 
lessness. The mind looks back to it, as the Psalmist did to 
the horrible pit and the miry clay from which none but God 
could deliver him ; and, as the Apostles did, to the time when 
they were dead in trespasses and sin, and none could bring 
them to life but God ; to the time when they were in darkness, 
blinded by the god of this world, and none but God could 
shine into their hearts to give the light of the glory of God in 
the face of Jesus Christ. They are conscious of a contrast 
between their present and their past which was not wrought 
by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by God 
Himself. As they think of this contrast they are constrained 
to say as Paul said when he looked at it, " By the grace of 
God I am what I am." 

Watts has gathered up and put into words, in some of his 
richest hymns, the emotions and sentiments which all believers 
at once recognize as their own. Looking back to the ruin to 
which he was hastening he exclaims : — 

" Lord ! I adore thy matchless grace, 
Which warned me of that dark abyss, 
Which drew me from those treacherous seas, 
And hade me seek superior bliss." 

Looking at his present state among the saved, and a guest 
at the festal board of his Lord, he cries : — 

" Why was I made to hear thy voice, 
And enter while there's room, 
When thousands make a wretched choice, 
And rather starve than cornel 

" 'Twas the same love that spread the feast, 
That sweetly drew me in ; 
Else I had still refused to taste, 
And perished in my sin." 

3. I remark again that the words of our Saviour which we are 
considering, are in harmony with the observation and expe- 
rience of men in other things besides those that are religious, 
and that pertain immediately to the salvation of the soul. 
They observe daily in others, and experience it in themselves, 
that a man in one state of mind cannot do the things to the 
doing of which another state of mind is absolutely essential. 



110 The Sinners Inability to come to Christ. [Serm. xn. 

A man that is angry with another, e. g., and cherishing a desire 
and purpose to injure him, cannot, at the same time, love him, 
and be seeking to do him good. A child that is disobedient in 
heart towards his parents, and wholly given up to seeking his 
own pleasure regardless of them, and of their will, cannot at 
the same time be an obedient and dutiful child. A man that 
is thoroughly dishonest and giving himself up to unscrupulous 
dealing in all his transactions with men, cannot, with such a 
disposition, be honest, and love and earnestly desire to practice 
fair-dealing. No man is stumbled, or finds anything out of the 
common line of men's thoughts, in the words of the Apostle 
Peter, when, speaking of grossly sensual and licentious men, 
he says, " Spots they are, and blemishes, sporting themselves 
with their own deceivings while they feast with you : having 
eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin." 

In all these cases we recognize a guilty inability. The angry 
and revengeful man must cease from anger and revengefulness, 
before he can treat his enemy rightly. The disobedient and 
undutiful child must come out of a disobedient and undutiful 
frame of mind or he cannot treat his parents as he is required 
to treat them. The dishonest man and cheat cannot be honest 
and true while he is governed by the principles that now control 
his life. The sensualist and adulterer cannot cease from sin so 
long as his sensualism has dominion over him. 

Nor do. we, in any of these cases, find any alleviation of guilt, 
or any lessening of responsibleness, in this inability. On the 
contrary, the greater the inability the greater the guilt, and 
the more fearful the responsibility. We do not think of ex- 
cusing them on account of their inability ; but we condemn 
them with greater severity the greater their inability becomes. 
The severest and most denunciatory of all our censure of men 
is that which we feel, and which we cannot help but feel, to- 
wards him who has so long and so wholly abandoned himself 
to dishonest practices, and to the sinful indulgence of his pas- 
sions, that duplicity and cheating and sensuality have become, 
as we say, a part of his very being. Our whole moral nature 
loathes him. We can no more count him guiltless and irre- 
sponsible, than we can approve of wrong as wrong, and hon- 
estly pronounce that to be right which we know to be wrong. 

But how is it with men in their relations with God ? What 



John vi. 44.] TJie Sinner's Liability to come to Christ. Ill 

is his own testimony regarding them ? " Their heart," He 
says, " is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." 
That is, they themselves, as God sees them, are thus deceitful 
and wicked. For we must guard against a not uncommon mis- 
take of laying off upon our hearts what belongs to our very 
selves. If a man's heart is deceitful and wicked, it is he him- 
self, as God sees him, that is deceitful and wicked. 

Again, Paul, speaking for God, and by the inspiration of the 
Holy Spirit, says, " We have proved, both Jews and Gentiles, 
that they are all under sin ; as it is written, There is none 
righteous, no, not one : there is none that understandeth, there 
is none that seeketh after God." 

This is the state of a sinner's mind towards God. His heart 
is turned away from God and holiness. The spirit of disobe- 
dience to God is in his heart, and his whole life is animated 
with either a fixed hostility to God's authority, or a senseless 
disregard of it and of his requirements, that shows that God is 
not in all his thoughts, and that the doing of God's will is no 
part of his concern. 

Can he come to Christ in this state of mind ? Coming to 
Christ is not an act of the body, but of the soul. For this to 
come to Christ there must be mental and spiritual exercises. 
There must be sorrow for sin, and desire for holiness. There 
must be a casting out of the spirit of disobedience to God and 
disregard for Him, and in its place there must be the spirit 
that desires to obey and to please Him. The spirit of self- 
serving and self-trusting, that puts him who indulges it above 
the requirements of God, above his authority, above his all- 
sufficiency, must be taken away, and humility and faith must 
take its place. For faith is the act itself of coming to Christ ; 
and faith is trusting God instead of self ; it is resting in his 
sufficiency rather than in the sufficiency of self. It is the 
abandoning of all reliance on self and on sin for help and hap- 
piness, and resting only in Christ for them. 

But does a sinner ever come into this state without the con- 
vincing and converting influences of God's Spirit? Does he 
ever break off his sins by righteousness and turn to the Saviour 
unless he is moved thereto by the grace of God ? On the con- 
trary, does he not remain unconcerned in his sins till the Spirit 
reproves him of them ? Does he not love his sins and abide in 



112 The Sinner's Inability to come to Christ. [Serm. xii. 

them, until God gives him a new heart ? or, lest we should de- 
ceive ourselves with words, until God graciously brings him to 
be willing to stop being and doing wrong, and causes him to 
desire to be and to do right ? - 

If, then, men are so evilly disposed that they will always re- 
ject God, and always rebel against Him, unless a power above 
them comes down and saves them from themselves by turning 
their hearts away from that to which they ought not to be de- 
voted — to which they have no right to be devoted, and in- 
fluencing them to do that which they ought to do, and which 
it is wrong for them not to do, — is there anything strange, 
anything that lessens the responsibility and guilt of sin and 
impenitence and unbelief, when our Saviour says, " No man 
can come to me except the Father who hath sent me draw 
him ? " The cannot is of the same nature as that which we 
are continually recognizing in the ordinary relations of life. It 
is the cannot of an evil disposition that is not willing to do 
right, and therefore one which can never palliate guilt, nor take 
away responsibility. It is a cannot that waits upon and finds 
all its strength in I will not! It is a cannot, therefore, for 
which we ourselves are wholly responsible and alone guilty ; 
and at the same time it is one that nothing but the regenerat- 
ing influence of the Spirit of God ever removes. It is not the 
cannot of one who wants to come to Christ, but of one who does 
not want to come to Him. The not wanting to come to Him 
is the guilty thing that God's grace must remove, or the sinner 
is lost. The cannot of our text does not apply, I repeat, to any 
one who wants to come to Christ. If one wants to come to 
Him he is already drawn by the Father. If he wants to come 
to Christ it is his privilege now to accept as true, and as in- 
tended for him, the words of the glorified Redeemer in his last 
verbal message to men : "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. 
And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is 
athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of 
life freely." 



SERMON XIII. 

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



Luke xxiv. 27, 44. — And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded unto 
them in all the Scripture, the things concerning Himself. And He said unto them, 
These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things 
must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in 
the Psalms, concerning me. 

npHE Evangelist John tells us that there were many things 
-■- in the life of Jesus which were not written. Many of his 
words were spoken for those only who heard them. Others 
were spoken not to be recorded in the precise form in which 
He uttered them, but to reappear in the writings of the Apos- 
tles in general precepts, or in the light of a fuller doctrinal 
development after his death. We have no reason to believe 
that the Evangelists have recorded all the instances in which 
He spoke the words that are alluded to in the text. There is 
no doubt that He often taught his disciples the great and fun- 
damental truth that the predictions of the Old Testament re- 
garding the Messiah were to have their fulfillment in his death 
and resurrection. A few of these instances are given in the 
gospel narratives ; and they are so plain and unmistakable that 
we wonder how their minds could have remained so darkened 
on the subject ; and how they could have been so unprepared 
for those great events when they occurred. His language ap- 
pears to us to be too full and too definite not to have been 
clearly understood : " Then He took the twelve and said unto 
them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are 
written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be 
accomplished. For He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, 
and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated, and spitted on : 
and they shall scourge Him and put Him to death : and the 
third day he shall rise again." This is very plain, and is a 
specimen of his method of dealing with his disciples during the 



114 Christ in the Old Testament. [Serm. xiii. 

latter part of his ministry, " while He was yet with them." 
And yet they did not understand what He meant. For it is 
added in the next verse, " And they understood none of these 
things : and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they 
the things which were spoken." Their difficulty was that they 
had formed, and they were cherishing certain false ideas re- 
garding the character and work of the promised Messiah, and 
these hid from their minds the truth which their Lord declared 
to them. And it was not until after his resurrection that these 
false ideas could be dislodged. The disciples clung to the notion 
that the Messiah Himself was to abide with them forever. They 
knew that an atoning sacrifice was to be made for the sins of 
men ; but they would not receive the thought that the Messiah 
Himself was not only to offer, but to be that sacrifice. It was 
to compel them to receive this single truth that He did what 
the Evangelist relates a few verses further on : " Then opened 
He their understanding that they might understand the Scrip- 
tures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it be- 
hooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third 
day ; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached 
in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." 

It was never absent from our Saviour's mind that his com- 
ing, his life-work, and his death and resurrection were all in 
exact accordance with the predictions of the Old Testament 
Scriptures. From first to last He plainly regarded Himself, 
and his work for sinners, as the great central thought of the 
Old Testament. It was all written with distinct reference to 
Him ; and each part of it, if read without Him in mind as its 
great fulfillment, would be, if not meaningless, yet shorn of its 
divine dignity and its real importance. 

In that walk with the two disciples, as they went to the vil- 
lage of Emmaus, Jesus did for them what He did for the twelve 
after the two had returned to them with the glad tidings that 
He was indeed risen from the dead, and that He had appeared 
to them and talked with them. " Beginning at Moses, and all 
the Prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the 
things concerning Himself." It was in this manner, in part at 
least, that " He opened their understanding, that they might 
understand the Scriptures." 

The threefold division of the Scriptures which is here made 



Luke xxiv. 27, 44.] Christ in the Old Testament 115 

was the common one in the time of our Saviour. The " Law 
of Moses " included the whole of the Pentateuch, or the u Five 
Books of Moses," as they are now commonly designated. The 
" Prophets " comprised the Book of Joshua, Judges, Kings, 
Chronicles, and all the Prophets except the Book of Daniel. 
The Psalms, the Book of Daniel, and such of the sacred writ- 
ings as were not included under the two preceding heads, — ■. 
" the Law" and "the Prophets," — formed the third class, 
and were called the " Holy Writings " by way of special emi- 
nence. When, therefore, our Saviour uttered the words of our 
text, He affirmed that all the Scriptures, every division of them, 
contained predictions regarding Himself and his work ; and 
what He did for the disciples when He began from Moses, and 
from all the Prophets, and expounded unto them in all the 
Scriptures the things concerning Himself, was to take up each 
division of the sacred writings and show what in each one was 
written concerning Him and unfold its true meaning, and point 
out its fulfillment in Himself. He took them back to the Gar- 
den of Eden, and quoted to them the words which were spoken 
in the ears of the fallen pair ; and which brought the first faint 
gleams of the far-distant morning into the darkness that had 
settled down upon the world through their transgression. 
Then as never before the disciples were made to apprehend 
the deep spiritual meaning, and the far-reaching import of 
those words : " I will put enmity between thee and the woman, 
and between thy seed and her seed ; he shall bruise thy head 
and thou shalt bruise his heel." Then as never before they 
began to understand something of the greatness of the promise 
made to Abraham, and something of the purpose of his calling, 
and of the founding of the Jewish nation. The littleness of 
thought in which they had been educated, and which made the 
Jewish nation, and everything Jewish to their minds, an end 
in itself, began to be displaced ; and the largeness of God's pur- 
pose, that took in the whole world and all time, began to dawn 
upon their minds, when Jesus quoted to them the words of 
Jehovah to Abraham, u In thee shall all the families of the 
earth be blessed," and showed them that the only real and true 
fulfillment of these words was in Himself, and in what He had 
done for the world in making atonement for its sins and be- 
coming its Intercessor. Then, as never before, they were en- 



116 Christ in the Old Testament. [Serm. xiii. 

abled to know the purpose of God in that wonderful series of 
interventions by which the descendants of Abraham, in the 
tribe of Judah, had been kept distinct from all other people, 
and their nationality preserved to them through so many hun- 
dred years — even after the ten revolted tribes had forever dis- 
appeared — in spite of so many influences outside of them- 
selves, and in spite of so many suicidal acts on their own part, 
calculated to destroy it. All became clear and consistent when 
the Lord quoted and unfolded the meaning of that wonderful 
prediction of the patriarch Jacob in giving his dying blessing 
to his sons : "To Judah he said, The sceptre shall not depart 
from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, until Shi- 
loh come ; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." 

All these passages, and we know not how many more, were 
brought before the minds of the disciples, from the first book 
of the Old Testament, and they were made to see how many 
were the things that were written concerning Himself, even in 
the dawning of time, and in the earliest of all writings. 

In like manner, passage after passage was quoted to them 
from the other books of Moses, and from the Prophets, .and 
from the Psalms, until they were enabled to see the whole 
history of Jesus of Nazareth, from his miraculous conception to 
his crucifixion and resurrection, all clearly delineated in the 
books that had been written for hundreds and thousands of 
years before this history passed from the divine purpose into 
actual realization. Thus He showed them the meaning of the 
strange words of the prophet Isaiah, written more than seven 
hundred years before ; and their yet stranger fulfillment in his 
own miraculous origin : " Behold a virgin shall conceive, and 
bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel ! " Thus, too, 
he made them understand, what they had never clearly com- 
prehended before, the blessing which the prophet Micah pro- 
nounced upon the little and hitherto insignificant village of 
Bethlehem. The prophet looked down through many cen- 
turies, and saw the stable and the manger which furnished 
shelter and a resting-place for the new-born Messiah and his 
mother in Bethlehem, when " there was no room for them at 
the inn." Then the prophets wrote, " And thou Bethlehem 
Ephrata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, 
yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be ruler 



Luke xxiv. 27, 44.] Christ in the Old Testament. 117 

in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from ever- 
lasting." 

And thus He went on through all the Scriptures, till the 
disciples clearly saw how utterly erroneous had been all their 
previous notions regarding the life and character of the Christ ; 
notions that they, in common with all the Jewish people, had 
imbibed from the false teachings of their learned men, who had 
perverted the divine word by their false interpretations, and 
covered its plain utterances out of sight by their own fanciful 
speculations and baseless assertions. Then, for the first time, 
the disciples saw the fitness of their Lord's method of life, — 
his humility, and unostentatious devotion to his lowly work, 
and its harmony with the predictions of the prophet when he 
wrote of Him as " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief ; 
as despised and rejected of men ; appearing to them as a root 
out of dry ground, having no form nor comeliness ; so that 
when they saw Him, there was no beauty that they should 
desire Him." Then for the first time they began to appre- 
hend the true meaning of those dark passages, both in the 
Psalms and in the Prophets, which would not bend to the 
prevalent theories of a grand and ever-triumphant Messiah, 
coming forth and abiding in all the pomp and prosperity of an 
all-conquering hero. As our Saviour read to them the twenty- 
second Psalm, beginning, " My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me," and containing such words as these, " All they 
that see me, laugh me to scorn ; they shoot out the lip, they 
shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would 
deliver him : let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. 
.... For dogs have compassed me ; the assembly of the wicked 
have inclosed me; they piereed my hands and my feet. I 
may tell all my bones : they look and stare upon me. They 
part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." 
As He read this, and then turned over to the sixty-ninth Psalm 
and read, " Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of 
heaviness : and I looked for some to take pity, but there was 
none ; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me 
also gall for my meat ; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar 
to drink ; " as the Lord read these startling passages to his 
rapt disciples, and made them understand that they all pointed 
to Him, and that they had all been fulfilled in Him, how 



118 Christ in the Old Testament. [Serm. xiii. 

vividly the scenes in the garden of Gethseniane, and on Cal- 
vary came back again into their minds ; and in what new 
and glowing light they began to think again of those scenes, 
and to comprehend their awful meaning ! Those scenes were 
now no longer mere chances that had befallen their Master. 
They were no longer mere incidents in his life ; incidents 
which they had sadly thought might have been avoided if 
their Master would only have been governed by their wishes, 
and come forth with his omnipotence, and in vengeance, against 
his enemies and persecutors. These scenes were no longer 
mere incidents in the life of their Lord, but they now became, 
to the minds of the disciples, consistent and necessary parts of 
one great and inseparable whole ; portions of the divine plan 
that had stood written for ages on the pages of inspiration, and 
had now come out in exact accordance with that plan, and in 
fulfillment of the eternal purpose of God. 

And then when their Lord came to the fifty-third chapter of 
the prophecies of Isaiah, and read those most wonderful of all 
prophetic words, " Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried 
our sorrows ; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, 
and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He 
was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace 
was upon Him ; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like 
sheep have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his own 
way ; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. .... 
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before 

her shearers is dumb, so He opened not his mouth Yet it 

pleased the Lord to bruise Him ; He hath put Him to grief : 
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, He shall see 
his seed, He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the 
Lord shall prosper in his hand." When our Lord read these 
words to his disciples, and made them understand that these 
also all had their fulfillment in Himself, and that they gave the 
true meaning and purpose of his sufferings and death, then, for 
the first time they apprehended the doctrine of an atoning 
Messiah, and saw clearly that, " thus it was written, and thus 
it behooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead 
the third day." To such of them as had been the disciples of 
John the Baptist, a new and glorious light spread over those 
once strange words of their former master, as he looked upon 



Luke xxiv. 27, 44.] Christ in the Old Testament. 119 

Jesus and said, " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sin of the world ! " They now began to comprehend the 
true import of those words of John the Baptist, and to know 
something of the manner in which their Lord fulfilled them. 
With this comprehension came also the germs of new thoughts 
regarding the meaning of all that sacrificial system that God 
had ordained, and under which they had been brought up and 
educated. These germs of thought were not then fully ma- 
tured ; it took years to mature them fully. But the disciples 
began then to apprehend what Paul so fully unfolded after- 
wards in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that all the sacrifices and 
rites of that dispensation were but types and prophecies of 
the great sacrifice which Isaiah so clearly foresaw and foretold, 
and which had now been accomplished under their own eyes 
in the crucifixion of their now risen Lord. 

It is not unlikely that while our Lord was thus " opening the 
understanding of his disciples, and expounding unto them in 
all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself," He brought 
before their minds some of those wonderful passages in the Old 
Testament that were written by the prophets, who beheld not 
only the sufferings of the Christ, but also the glory that should 
follow those sufferings in a reward of eternal greatness and 
majesty to Himself, and in the salvation and eternal blessedness 
of a multitude that no man can number from all the nations 
and kindreds of the earth. If He did so, then He told them 
the true meaning of those words in the ninth chapter of Isaiah, 
which have no meaning, and can never be satisfactorily inter- 
preted, saving as they are understood as referring to the Mes- 
siah, and as fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth : " For unto us a 
child is born, unto us a Son is given ; and the government 
shall be upon his shoulder ; and his name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, 
The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and 
peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and 
upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judg- 
ment and with justice from henceforth even forever." When 
the disciples heard this, and learned that it was all said of their 
crucified but risen Lord, they began to comprehend something 
of the significance of his resurrection, and to have some faint 
glimpses of the glory and dominion to which it was the fitting 



120 Christ in the Old Testament. [Serm. xm. 

prelude. It was a preparation for them to hear those grand 
words from their Lord which constituted his final commission 
to them, and to all who should come after them in the minis- 
terial office : " And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, 
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth ; Go ye 
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : 
and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world." It was a preparation also for their hearing those 
words so full of judicial majesty and authority, which are 
given, some of them by Luke, and some of them by Mark : 
" Repentance and remission of sins must be preached and in 
my name among all nations : Go ye into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and 
is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be 
damned." 

Such are a few of the many things that were written in the 
" Law of Moses," and in the " Prophets," and in the " Psalms," 
concerning the promised and predicted Christ ; and which 
Jesus of Nazareth appropriated to Himself, and declared that 
they had their fulfillment in Him alone. These were some of 
the passages which He quoted and opened to the minds of his 
disciples when He " expounded unto them in all the Scriptures 
the things concerning Himself." They embrace all the great 
salient points of sacred history, and unfold and interpret the 
purpose and intention of God in ordering and watching over 
that history, from its first dawning in the garden of Eden, 
through all the vicissitudes of the descendants of Abraham, 
and down to the fullness of time predicted for the coming of 
the Promised Seed who should bruise the serpent's head and 
redeem a fallen world, and open to the ruined race a way to 
eternal life. 

In view of this summary of the teachings of the Old Tes- 
tament and their fulfillment in the life and death and resur- 
rection and character of Jesus of Nazareth, and in view of the 
interpretation which He himself put upon them, his mission, 
his words, and his religion, become matters of the gravest and 
most solemn moment. His mission becomes the fulfillment of 
an eternal purpose. It was the coming forth of Him who was 



Luke xxiv. 27, 44.] Christ in the Old Testament. 121 

from the days of eternity. He is no mere man. He is the 
eternal God become flesh. His mission is the central thought 
in all divine plans for this world, the great event for which 
all other events were arranged, to which all preceding events 
looked forward, and for which they were a preparation ; to 
which all succeeding events look back, and are its interpreta- 
tion, — the steps of its progress towards final triumph and 
glory. 

His words become the words of the infinite God ; and they 
are clothed with all divine majesty and authority. They are 
pure truth ; the revelations of the divine will ; and of the di- 
vine purpose yet awaiting fulfillment towards this world, and 
towards the men of this world in the world that is to come. 

His religion becomes the one and only religion of God 
among men. It is that by which alone all who have pleased 
God, and been saved from his wrath, and from the punishment 
due to their sins have governed their lives, which they have 
cherished in their hearts, and to which they have conformed 
their characters. It becomes the only religion by which men 
can now serve God and be accepted by Him. Its precepts are 
full of authority, and must be obeyed. Its rites are of God, 
and no man may set them aside, or tamper with them. Its 
spirit is the spirit of heaven ; and no man can hope for heaven 
saving as he cherishes it in his own soul. Its sacrifice is the 
only sacrifice for sin, the only atonement. Its Intercessor is 
the only advocate and mediator of sinful men with a holy God. 

This review of the teachings of the Old Testament regard- 
ing the Christ, and this fulfillment of them in Jesus of Naza- 
reth, intensifies, therefore, every claim of the gospel, and aug- 
ments immeasurably the responsibility of those to whom the 
gospel is preached. Every sentence is an urging of that preg- 
nant question of the Apostle to the Hebrews, " How shall we 
escape if we neglect so great salvation ? " Every sentence 
confirms those words of Peter to the Jewish Sanhedrim, " Nei- 
ther is there salvation in any other ; for there is none other 
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be 
saved." Every sentence enlarges and gives a broader meaning 
to that encouraging declaration of the author of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews : " This man, because He continueth ever, hath 
an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save 



122 Christ in the Old Testament. [Serm. xiii. 

tliem to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He 
ever liveth to make intercession for them." 

Let us thank God that we have a religion that comes to us 
from eternity, and is not the product of human fancy ; that we 
have a Saviour whom the eternal God provided from eternity, 
one only and all-sufficient Saviour, whom all the Scriptures of 
the Old Testament foretold, whom all the Scriptures of the 
New Testament declare ; that we have a revelation that comes 
from the counsels of eternity, full of all needed truth, always 
consistent with itself, always satisfying to the understandings 
and consciences of the sincere, always bearing with itself the 
authority of God, and standing as the pledge of his deep and 
abiding interest in men, and of his eternal faithfulness in his 
dealings with them. 



SERMON XIV. 

CHRIST THE OBJECT OF WORSHIP. 



Matt. xi. 28. — Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 

you rest. 

IT is a matter of the first importance, in considering and 
applying this passage of Scripture, to inquire whether the 
invitation and promise which it contains, were intended for all 
ages and all classes of men, or whether they were limited to 
the time and circumstances in which they were uttered. Does 
our Lord invite the laboring and heavy laden now to come to 
Him, and at all times, or was the invitation to have force only 
while He was bodily present with them ? 

If the latter view of the passage be the true one, then its in- 
vitation and promise were not intended for us, nor for our 
times. They were the words of a mere man calling the needy 
to him, and promising them aid and relief while he was bodily 
among them. 

But if the former view be the true one, then it is the privi- 
lege of the needy and suffering now to go directly to Christ for 
succor and relief, not less than it was the privilege of those 
who lived when He was in the flesh. He is a very present help 
in trouble, no less for us than He was for those who looked 
upon his person and heard these precious words as they fell 
from his own lips ; and Christ Himself, in his own person, is 
the Being to whom we may, to whom we ought to betake our- 
selves for help in time of need ; on whom our souls may repose 
and find support ; and with whom we may commune directly 
by prayer and thanksgiving and supplication. 

Do the Scriptures justify this understanding and application 
of the passage before us ? In other words, is it right and proper 
for the needy and suffering to come directly to Jesus Christ 
for succor, and to call upon Him directly for comfort and sup- 
port in their trials and necessities ? Is it right to regard Him 



124 Christ the Object of Worship. [Serm. xiv. 

and to approach Him as One who, in Himself, hears and an- 
swers the prayers of men ? 

Let me direct your attention to two or three proofs from the 
Scriptures that this view of the text is the true one. And I do 
it, my hearers, with the earnest desire that you may be brought 
to listen to the invitation, and believe in the promise, and 
experience the blessedness and satisfaction and rest of soul 
which come from direct personal communion with our ascended 
and ruling Lord. 

1. The Scriptures gives us the example of the Apostles and 
early Christians in favor of thus communing with the Redeemer. 
They were accustomed to come directly to Him in their wor- 
ship, and to call directly upon Him in times of sorrow and of 
need. They always pointed inquirers who asked how they 
might be saved, directly to Jesus Christ. They directed them 
to Him alone, and commanded them to trust in Him. They 
used no other name. They encouraged no hope of salvation 
from any other Being. This is a very significant fact. 

When they were dealing with such inquirers, they did not 
use the name of God. Reason : " No man hath seen God at 
any time. The only begotten Son hath revealed Him." They 
did not use the name of the Father. Reason : " No man 
cometh unto the Father but by me. He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father." 

Moreover, a fair interpretation of most of the passages in the 
Acts, and in the Epistles, in which the Apostles called upon 
" the Lord " in their worship and prayers, shows that they 
almost always, if not always, were looking directly to the Re- 
deemer when they used this word. To their minds, " the Lord " 
was the Redeemer Himself. It was the Lord Jesus Christ with 
whom they communed in their worship, and whom they ad- 
dressed in their petitions to the throne of grace. 

In the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, for ex- 
ample, the sacred historian informs us that at the close of the 
trial of Stephen, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing 
on the right hand of God ; that is, in the place of power and 
dominion. Stephen thus told his persecutors ; but they refused 
to hear him further, and hurried him away to the place of 
execution. " And there they stoned Stephen," it is written, 
" calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit. 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 125 

And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord lay- 
not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he 
fell asleep." 

Now, did Stephen die an idolater ? Did he spend his last 
breath in prayer to a mere man, or to a being of his own imagi- 
nation ? You cannot be made to believe that this was the 
death scene of an idol- worshipper. But if he was not an idola- 
ter giving to a creature the honor that belongs to God only, 
but was a true worshipper of the one only living and true God, 
as he must have been if he was, as the inspired penman de- 
clares, a man full of the Holy Ghost, then by his example, we 
know assuredly that it is right and proper, the duty and privi- 
lege, indeed, of the suffering and needy, to call upon Christ for 
help now, and at all times to make Him the object of their wor- 
ship and their prayers, and the refuge of their souls. 

The account of the conversion of the Apostle Paul shows that 
what Stephen did in the hour of his great extremity, the disci- 
ples were accustomed to do on all occasions. If you will look at 
the narrative, you will see that throughout it is the Lord with 
whom both Saul and Ananias have to do ; and that there may 
be no doubt who the Lord is, He makes Himself known, at the 
outset, in a manner not to be misunderstood. For, when Saul, 
overcome by the light that suddenly shined upon him from 
heaven, fell to the earth and heard a voice saying to him, 
" Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? " He asked, " Who 
art thou, Lord ? " The Lord said, " I am Jesus, whom thou per- 
secutest." And when Ananias went to lay his hands on the 
stricken man, he said, " Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus 
that appeared unto thee in the way as thou earnest, hath sent 
me that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the 
Holy Ghost. And now why tarriest thou ? Arise and be bap- 
tized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the 
Lord." 

The first word that Paul received in the gospel was thus 
spoken to him directly by the Lord Jesus Christ ; and the first 
Christian act which He performed was calling thus on Jesus 
Christ in solemn religious worship. As he began, so he con- 
tinued to the end of his course, calling upon the name of the 
Lord. 

Thus, when he was in trouble because of that thorn in his 



126 Christ the Object of Worship. [Serm. xiv. 

flesh, which he says was the messenger of Satan to buffet him 
lest he should be exalted above measure, then he says, " I 
besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And 
He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee ; for my 
strength is made perfect in weakness." " Most gladly," there- 
fore, exclaims the adoring Apostle, " will I rather glory in my 
infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." He 
leaves us in no uncertainty who the Lord is, to whom he' made 
his supplication. It was none other than He who said to the 
weary and heavy laden, " Come unto me," and his words were as 
much for Paul, years after the glorification of the Redeemer, as 
they were for the tired and troubled who surrounded Him in 
the days of his humiliation. 

The last petition that he ever penned, so far as what he wrote 
has come down to us, was uttered to Christ. He was writing 
to Timothy and closed his letter with these words, " The Lord 
Jesus Christ be with thy spirit." 

Shall we fear to tread where Paul walked ? Was Paul, the 
great Apostle, the chosen teacher of the Church of Christ, was 
he a mistaken and an idolatrous zealot ? He was an inspired 
Apostle, and a worshipper of the true God. Jesus was to him 
the manifestation of this God. As such he bowed before Him 
in worship and praise ; as such he called upon his name and 
lived. 

But if Paul was a worshipper of the true God, then it is our 
privilege also, as it was his, — and our duty too, — to make his 
Lord our Lord, and to come, as he did, directly to our Re- 
deemer for help in every time of need, and continually to main- 
tain an intimate and soul-refreshing communion with Him. 
For us, as for Paul, the name of Jesus is the only name 
whereby we can be saved. It is for us the name that is above 
every name, and to which we may and must bow in humble 
adoration, and in grateful dependence. His words, " Come 
unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden," extend to us 
and are a part of our priceless heritage in Him. 

2. The Scriptures ascribe to Christ the attributes which 
make Him the hearer and answerer of prayer. 

The first and most obvious attribute necessary to such a Be- 
ing is omnipresence. He whom men — all men in all places, 
and at all times — may worship, and to whom they may ad- 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 127 

dress their prayers and be heard and answered. He must at 
all times be in all places. There must be no place which his 
presence does not fill. Wherever a creature can be, there espe- 
cially must He be. Otherwise He could not there be wor- 
shipped. There the worshipper and suppliant would find that 
his ear was heavy that it could not hear. 

This is the attribute upon which every one who prays places 
his first reliance. " G-od is here," says the needy and suffering 
soul : " G-od is here, therefore I may call upon Him and He 
can succor me." That which makes God a hearer of prayer 
to you when you enter your closet, is, first of all, that God is 
there. It is because God is in your home that He is to your 
mind the hearer of prayer at your family altar. And He is 
the hearer of prayer to us to-day in this sanctuary, first of 
all because He is here ; also, as He is in every sanctuary on 
earth. He will be the hearer of prayer to you to-morrow when 
you go again into the scenes of the world, and mingle in its 
affairs, because there is no mart of business so crowded, no 
place of trial and temptation, or of sin or of holy service, so 
secluded that He is not there. He is the hearer of prayer to 
the dwellers or the wanderers in the remotest regions, on every 
mountain, in every valley, in every city, on every island, be- 
cause the universe furnishes no place whither you may go from 
his Spirit, or whither you may flee from his presence. On the 
ocean also as on the land, He is the hearer of prayer, first of 
all, because, ' u if you take the wings of the morning, and dwell 
in the uttermost parts of the sea, there He is ; and there his 
hand may lead you, and his right hand hold you." His way 
is in the sea, and his path in the great waters. 

Such must be the attribute of the Being who can be called, 
in any proper sense, the hearer of prayer ; and such must be 
the attribute of Him who can say to all the sons of want and 
sorrow, — and his words not be a pretense and a mockery, — 
" Come unto me and I will give you rest." Such, therefore, 
must be the attribute of Jesus Christ if his words have any ap- 
plication to us. If He be not omnipresent we do but delude 
ourselves when we suppose that we have anything to do with 
these words ; and we are only tantalizing and deceiving the 
suffering and the afflicted when we direct them to Jesus as 
their Saviour and Comforter, in whom they may find rest for 
their weary sovds. 



128 Christ the Object of Worship. [Sekm. XIV. 

But we are not left to argument and inference in this mat- 
ter; this attribute is ascribed to our Saviour by the inspired 
Word. He Himself claimed it, his own words place the fact 
beyond question. Look, for example, at the thirteenth verse of 
the third chapter of John, " No man," said He in his conversa- 
tion with Nicodemus, " hath ascended up to heaven, but He 
that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in 
heaven." He was then upon the earth, in the land of Judaea ; 
yet He was then also in heaven. Consider the peculiar char- 
acter of this language, and you will not fail to see that nothing 
short of the possession of omniscience would justify it. 

On another occasion, you remember, He said to his disciples, 
addressing them as his Church on the earth, and laying down 
the rule for the discipline of his churches in all ages, and giving 
to that discipline the promise of his own sanction, and the ap- 
proval and confirmation of heaven : " For where two or three 
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of 
them." There is no place excepted. He who was really in 
heaven when He was at the same time visibly and bodily and 
as really present upon the earth, is now no less, and no less 
really, on the earth, though He is visibly and bodily present 
in heaven. Wherever two or three can come together in his 
name, He is with them. He is in every sanctuary of earth to- 
day. In every land where He has disciples that have met to 
call upon Him, He is with them. He is in the churches of 
Asia, in those of Africa, in those of America, in those of 
Europe, and of the isles of the sea. He is with us. 

Again, when He gave his disciples the great commission, 
sending them forth to preach the gospel in all the world, 
teaching all nations, and baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, He gave 
them this glorious and all-sufficient promise : " Lo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world." 

Language could not be more explicit. There is no place into 
which a disciple of Christ can go, but Christ is there with him. 
Because He was both in heaven and on earth at the same 
moment ; and because He is, at all times, everywhere, there- 
fore is his presence pledged to every disciple wherever he may 
be, or wherever he may go, in the work of the gospel. Be- 
cause of his omnipresence, and only because of this, Christ 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 129 

could say, — and it would have been cruel and blasphemous 
trifling for Him. to have said it but for this, — " Lo, I am with 
you alway." Go where you may, I am there. You are not 
alone. You shall never be alone. Fear nothing, therefore, in 
the carrying out of my commission ; I, who have healed the 
sick, and raised the dead, and fed hungry thousands, in your 
sight, and laid my authority upon the winds, and my commands 
upon the waves, in your presence, and in your behalf, I am with 
you. Not, " I will go with you." This would imply that He 
was not present, except as He went with them. But I am with 
you. Let Peter go eastward to Babylon, and Paul westward 
to Rome, and let the other disciples be scattered abroad, never 
so widely, preaching the Word ; still Peter in Babylon, and 
Paul in Rome, and each disciple, even to the remotest corner 
of the world, would find his Lord with him at all times, — a 
present help in all emergencies. And so He said, " Where 
two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I." 
Not there will I be. Let them not be afraid to assemble in his 
name, even in the presence of his enemies ; for their Lord is 
there. Let them not shrink from doing his whole will, and 
carrying out all his instructions, for He is present to behold, 
to reward, to protect, to chasten, and, if need be, to punish, — 
" Lo, I am here in the midst of you ! " 

These words of comfort and hope are enough. They leave 
us no room to doubt the reality and efficacy of our Lord's 
presence with his people at all times and in all places. He is 
not limited. He is omnipresent. There is no mockery, then, 
in his words ; no trifling ; but solemn and tender earnestness, 
and sustaining truth. And they remain in full force for us, 
and for his disciples in all ages. They are, like Himself, the 
same yesterday and to-day and forever. The invitation and 
promise which they contain are our own ; and we can claim 
them and rest in them without fear or misgiving. We can 
plead them before Him in personal prayer for ourselves, and 
we can commend them to the needy and suffering and af- 
flicted at all times, as intended for them, and sure of fulfillment 
to them. Because He is omnipresent, He can say, and there 
is meaning and power in his words, when He says, " Come 
unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest." 



130 Christ the Object of Worship. [Serm. xiv. 

2. But omnipresence alone would not be enough. He who 
can succor the needy and the suffering as widely as this invita- 
tion and promise reach, and be to them all that this invitation 
and promise encourage them to hope for, must have omnipo- 
tence also, as well as omnipresence. He must be all powerful, 
as well as everywhere present. The fainting heart could never 
trust Him fully if He were less than almighty. Let there be 
any limit to his power to save and to succor, and He would 
cease to be a hearer and answerer of prayer. Limit his power, 
and his arm is shortened that it cannot save. The really and 
consciously needy soul craves the support and protection of 
Absolute Almightiness. Nothing short of an apprehension of 
this can impart to such a soul a sense of security. This attri- 
bute must then belong to our Saviour, if his words are to have 
any vital meaning, and any sustaining and rest-giving power 
upon our minds. 

Is this, then, one of our Saviour's attributes ? His history 
while He was in the flesh gives us many indications of its pos- 
session by Him. All material things then yielded to his 
power. He had only to speak, and it was done ; to command, 
and the purpose of his will stood fast. All the elements were 
under his control. Diseases of both body and mind ceased to 
be when He laid his hand upon them. Death loosened his 
grasp, and his hand fell powerless from his victims, as often as 
the Son of Man asserted his will against him. 

But our faith in the almightiness of Christ does not rest on 
this alone. Alone this might not be sufficient to sustain our 
faith. But this proof is supported and confirmed by the most 
explicit statement of the divine Word. When He sent forth 
his disciples to their great work, his words to them were, " All 
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." He said this 
as an encouragement to undertake the seemingly hopeless 
enterprise which he was committing to them. Go forth, and 
fear not, He said, for I who bid you go am almighty. I, 
who am almighty, will be with you to the end of the world. 
I hold in my own hand, and will wield for your protection, and 
for the success of your great undertaking, all the resources of 
omnipotence. 

It is in harmony with this, and an acceptance of it as true, 
when Paul says, in the third chapter of his Epistle to the 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 131 

Philippians, that Christ shall, at his appearing, change our 
vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious 
body, according to the working whereby He is able even to 
subdue all things unto Himself." 

Nothing is too hard for Him ! All the forces of nature, all 
the powers of heaven and of hell. All things in heaven, in 
the earth, in all the worlds with which unmeasured space is 
studded, — principalities, powers, angelic hosts, and demoniac 
hordes, all things, He is able to subdue unto Himself. It is no 
wonder, therefore, that in the first chapter of Revelation He 
is distinctly named " The Almighty : " "I am Alpha and 
Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which 
is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." 

Have you any fear, my hearer, to commit yourself directly 
unto the keeping of Him who is almighty ? You might well 
have fears to do so, if there were nothing but the fact of his 
almightiness to encourage you. This very attribute might 
then be your ruin. You would fall before it, and be crushed 
into ruin. But when this is possessed by Him who gave his 
life for us, and who uttered the gracious words of our text, and 
his truth stands pledged to fulfill to you his promise, then you 
need have no fear. With such a support you cannot fail of 
present help in every time of need. You cannot but be safe 
in dealing directly with Him in all your necessities, and com- 
muning with Him in all your prayers. 

3. We are confirmed yet more in this view of our privilege 
to deal directly with our Redeemer, in our acts of worship, and 
in our supplications for aid, when we find that not only omni- 
presence and almightiness, but the government of the uni- 
verse is ' in his hands ; and that He himself actually reigns 
supreme over all created things. He holds the sceptre of 
universal dominion. Wherever his omnipresence is, there is 
also his almighty power, upholding, guiding, governing. All 
things yield to his will. Not an angel lives in heaven that 
does not execute the Redeemer's mandate. Not a lost spirit 
in the world of woe, but confesses his sway. All things in all 
worlds are his subjects. He rules over them and does his 
pleasure among them. 

Are we treading on forbidden ground here ? Do we state 
more than the Word of God has again and again asserted ? Is 



132 Christ the Object of Worship. [Sebm.xiv. 

it not distinctly said of Him, that He " upholds all things by 
the word of his power ? " that " by Him all things consist ? " 
that He is " head over all things to the Church ? " and, as we 
just now quoted, that " all power in heaven and in earth is 
given unto his hands ? " 

My hearers, are you ready to admit all this ? You are, if 
you are ready to behold in the Redeemer all the attributes and 
prerogatives which the Scriptures ascribe to Him. If you take 
the Bible for your guide, you are ready now to behold in the 
hand of Christ the sceptre of all dominion. 

He rules in nature. It is He " who hath gathered the winds 
in his fists ; who hath bound the waters in a garment ; who 
hath established all the ends of the earth." There is no de- 
partment of the government of nature which He does not ad- 
minister. 

He rules in providence. The issues of life and death are in 
his hands. He holds the destiny of every creature. It is He 
who will decide and pronounce upon that destiny in the day of 
judgment. For it is the judgment-seat of Christ before which 
we must all stand, that each may receive the awards of this 
life in eternal retribution. He- rules, too, in your daily life, 
believing hearer ; and it is He who is causing all things to 
work together for good to them that love Him. It is He who 
causes the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of 
wrath He will restrain." He it is who is overturning and 
overturning among the nations of the earth, and preparing the 
way for His final and glorious appearing. 

Let us not delay, then, to join with the ten thousand times 
ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels and living 
beings who are to-day in heaven, saying with a loud voice, 
" Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and 
blessing." 

It is the will of the Father that we should do all this. For 
the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his 
hands. The Father judge th no man ; but hath committed all 
judgment, or rule, unto the Son ; that all men should honor 
the Son, even as they honor the Father. 

Can you fear to come to such a Being ? Can you fear to 
come to Him when He invites and promises as He does in 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 133 

these words that are before us ? Are you afraid of idolatry in 
so doing? 

Not until you make Him something higher than God can 
you commit idolatry in your dealings with Him. But you 
may so deal with the Blessed Redeemer as to commit some- 
thing worse, if possible, than idolatry. For you may fail to 
give Him the honor which belongs to Him. You may set Him 
lower in your esteem than you do God. You may divest Him, 
in your thoughts, of all his prayer-hearing attributes. You 
may deny his omnipresence. You may question his omnipo- 
tence. You may, in your imagination, wrest from his hand 
the sceptre of universal government. All this you may do ; 
but you cannot exalt Jesus too high ; nor honor Him too much, 
nor trust Him too confidingly, nor serve Him too faithfully. 
Not until you have placed Him, on all these things, above God, 
need you fear. Not until, in all these things, you have ex- 
alted Him into the throne and place of God, ought you to cease 
to fear. 

44 Kiss the Son," then, my hearer ; 44 kiss the Son, lest He be 
angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled 
but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." 



SERMON XV. 

CHRIST THE OBJECT OF WORSHIP. 



Matt. xi. 28. — Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 

you rest. 

IT is not the mission of the gospel to threaten and denounce 
men. On the contrary its messages are invitations and 
promises to the needy and suffering. It never forgets, indeed, 
that men are condemned ; that they have broken the law of a 
holy God, and trampled ruthlessly upon his authority ; and 
that they are therefore deeply and inexcusably guilty and 
hopelessly lost. The gospel everywhere assumes all this to be 
true, and insists upon it as being the real and universal condi- 
tion of men. But it does this not as its primary work, but 
only for the purpose and in the way of offering the guilty par- 
doning mercy, and saving them from death. The very soul of 
the gospel is embodied in those hope-giving words of our Sav- 
iour : " God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the 
world, but that the world through Him might be saved." The 
world is condemned, but the gospel brings to it the offer of par- 
don. It is lost, but the gospel brings to it the offer and makes 
known to it the provisions and the condition of salvation. But 
for condemnation there would be no need of pardon, and the 
offer of it would be useless and foolish. But for the lost con- 
dition of men, as a race of sinners, the offer of salvation to 
them, and the announcement of the provisions for it, and the 
conditions of securing it, would be vain and unpardonable tri- 
fling. 

It is, then, only because men need salvation that the gospel 
offers it to them ; and only because they need pardon that the 
gospel tells them of redemption through the blood of Christ, 
even the forgiveness of sins. It is because these necessities of 
the human race are permanent, remaining from age to age, and 
because they are never superseded by any condition or circum- 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 135 

stances into which they can be brought, that the gospel re- 
mains in force and of vital importance to men, and will remain 
so until the end of time. All its invitations and promises are 
the heritage, therefore, of every age, and of all classes of the 
human family. As none are, or ever will be, exempt from the 
wretchedness and fearful liabilities which rendered the gospel 
a necessity when it was given, so it will never cease to be 
adapted to their wants and all-sufficient for their salvation. As 
with the gospel, so with Him who speaks to men in it, He re- 
mains to them " the same yesterday and to-day and forever." 
His words of promise have as direct a bearing upon men of one 
age as they have upon those of another. They are meant for 
all ages alike ; and Christ who speaks them is as able and as 
sacredly pledged to make them good to all who accept them 
now, as He was in the days of his sojourn in the flesh. 

As we recently endeavored to show, this is the true light in 
which to regard the words of our text, if they have any mean- 
ing whatever for, us, or if we have any right to consider them 
as addressed to us, or intended for our acceptance. 

I did not then finish my argument in favor of such an un- 
derstanding and use of the passage. We then looked at only 
two, out of five or six proofs that the words before us are as 
much our inheritance in Christ as they were the inheritance 
of those who heard them from his own lips ; and that it is as 
much our privilege to accept this ever precious invitation and 
promise, by coming directly to the Redeemer in prayer and in 
communion of soul, as it was the privilege of those who saw his 
bodily presence. Nay, our privilege is greater in this respect 
than theirs was. They had not learned to rise, in their con- 
ceptions of the Son of God, above his merely bodily presence ; 
but we have been taught to recognize and depend upon his 
spiritual omnipresence, and therefore we are never limited by 
time or place or circumstances. Wherever we are, there our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is, and we can approach Him 
with boldness in acceptance of his gracious invitation, and con- 
fidently depend upon an immediate fulfillment of his soul-sus- 
taining promise. 

The two arguments in favor of such an immediate coming 
to Christ in prayer, and such direct communing of soul with 
Him were, first, the fact that the early disciples and inspired 



136 Christ the Object of Worship, [Serm. xv. 

Apostles were accustomed thus to act. They prayed directly 
to Jesus Christ, and communed with Him. The Lord upon 
whom they called was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. 
The second argument was found in the fact that the Scriptures 
fully and unequivocally ascribe to Jesus Christ every attribute 
necessary to constitute Him the object of worship, and the 
hearer and answerer of prayer. They ascribe to Him omni- 
presence, and omnipotence, and the supreme government of the 
universe. 

He who has these is certainly able to hear and answer our 
prayer. He, certainly, can commune with our souls, and re- 
fresh them by his grace. He, certainly, can ever make good 
the words which He has left on record for our hope and sup- 
port. It is our right to come to Him as to one whose arm is 
never shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy that it 
cannot hear. Nay, more, not only is it our right and privilege 
to come directly to Him thus ; it is our duty. He who has all 
power in heaven and in earth, whose is the government of the 
universe, demands our homage and our trust. If our worship 
be not the worship of God known only in Him and through 
Him, our worship is idolatry. It is not God indeed, but an 
image of our own creation, that we then worship. The invita- 
tion and the promise of our text can be heeded only by plead- 
ing them directly with Christ ; they can be answered by none 
but Him. It is a mistake to suppose that it is optional with 
us to recognize God in Jesus Christ or not, and optional 
whether or not we honor Him as God. It is the will of the 
Father that all men should honor the Son even as they honor 
the Father ; and they only see or know the Father, who see 
and know Him in the Son. 

3. In further proof of such an understanding and use of the 
gracious words before us, I call your attention, thirdly, to the 
fact that the Scriptures ascribe to Christ all the acts by which 
Deity has ever been manifested to men. 

It is this feature of the Scriptures which gives permanent 
force and vitality to the invitation and promise of our text. 
They make Christ, our Redeemer, to be that Being in whom 
are truly found all the prerogatives, and by whom alone have, 
been done and are done those acts, which are fundamental in 
all scripturally formed ideas of God. Every act which the 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship, 137 

mind can fix upon as having manifested God, or as now mani- 
festing Him, is the act of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

Let us look at this matter a little closely. Creation is the 
first and most palpable manifestation of God. As we open our 
eyes and look upon the world in which we are, and upon the 
worlds that are above us, we spontaneously and necessarily 
connect them in our minds with a Creator. Some Being has 
made all these worlds. This is the inevitable verdict of every 
man's reason, if it gives any verdict at all, when he looks upon 
the works of creation. Nor is this the only idea in his mind 
on this point when he thus judges. It is supplemented, and 
inseparably connected with this other idea, namely, whoever 
the Being is that made all created things, He is God. 

This idea lies at the foundation of all ideas of a Supreme 
Being, or true God. If you cease to ascribe to Him the works 
of creation, he ceases, in your mind, to be the Supreme Being, 
or true God. Take away creative power, and you have taken 
away the essential and necessary attribute of Deity. Transfer 
the act of creation from God to another, and you have trans- 
ferred the prerogative of Deity from Him. But you cannot 
make this transfer. For whenever you think of this power, 
and this act, the Being with whom you associate them is God. 
He is manifested in them and by them. He has made Himself 
known by them. 

This is the teaching of the Bible, as it is also the experience of 
our own minds. Paul assures us, in the first chapter of Romans, 
for example, " that which may be known of God is manifest to 
men ; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible 
things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal 
power and godhead." 

The Psalmist teaches us the same lesson. " The heavens 
declare the glory of God ; and the firmament showeth his 
handy-work." To be possessed of human powers of thought, 
and of reasoning, and to look abroad upon the works of crea- 
tion, with those powers in exercise, is to behold the existence 
and the work of a Being whom the mind names Supreme and 
God. 

"Behold the lofty sky 

Declares its Maker, God ; 
And all his starry works on high 
Proclaim his power abroad." 



138 Christ the Object of Worship. [Skrm. XV. 

This fact, that we must recognize the being of God in the 
Creator of the world, is assumed throughout the Scriptures. 
They take it for granted that we cannot separate creatorship 
from Deity. To be Creator is to be God ; and to be God is to 
have been the Creator. Hence in the very opening sentence 
of the Bible the great fact is declared, which all men, who 
have not first silenced their reason by sophistry, are prepared 
to receive and credit, and it is declared as though, in truth, 
men could not deny or question it. " In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth." The sacred writer makes 
this declaration at the outset, that he may lift the minds of his 
readers above all thoughts of the idols and gods of the heathen 
world, and connect the Being of whom he is going to write with 
an act to which no idol god ever laid claim. Jehovah, unlike 
Baal or Jupiter, or any other false god, was Creator. In crea- 
tion He made his first, and out of redemption, the most unmis- 
takable and most glorious manifestation of Himself to intelligent 
beings. 

This thought is at the foundation of every act of truly divine 
worship. If you pay homage to a being who is not Creator of 
the world, and all things in it, and so of yourself, then you fall 
short of divine worship and become an idolater. 

Inseparably connected with this is another idea which is also 
at the foundation of every prayer that ever goes up from a 
burdened soul to God. The maker of all things, in whom we 
first behold God made manifest, is also the upholder of the 
worlds He has made. This is the continuance of his first mani- 
festation, that which He made in creation. No prayer could 
ascend to any Being, no call could be made on Him for help in 
time of need, if the needy did not behold in the Being to whom 
he would make his appeal, the ruler and governor of the 
elements and circumstances by which He is surrounded. You 
could not ask your daily bread from one whom you did not 
think able to give it. You could not ask for protection in 
times of danger, nor deliverance from distress, from one in 
whom you did not behold power to protect and deliver. Your 
every prayer to a deliverer presupposes rulership in Him as 
the ground of his power to deliver. How else could He hear 
and answer prayer ? If He has not absolute dominion over 
you, and all that pertains to your welfare, why ask Him to do 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 139 

that which, without such dominion, He would be utterly unable 
to perform ? 

Such are the fundamental ideas of God in the mind of every 
true worshipper. In and by these two things especially has 
God manifested Himself to men. In and by them He con- 
tinues the manifestation. To be Creator, Upholder, and Ruler is 
to be the Being to whom if to any, the needy and suffering 
may come, and with whom they may commune in prayer. He 
is the Being to whom they may betake themselves for refuge 
and help in every time of need, and against every opposing or 
oppressing ill, if the way of approach to Him be not utterly 
closed. If it be, then indeed there is no being to whom the 
afflicted soul can betake itself in its extremity. Then there is 
none who can help ; none who can deliver ; none in whom the 
soul can indeed recognize a helper. 

Now what we affirm is that the Scriptures clearly and un- 
equivocally ascribe these acts by which Deity is primarily mani- 
fested to men, and in which we find the prerogatives of that 
Being to whom alone we can betake ourselves for divine help, 
these acts the Scriptures unhesitatingly ascribe to Him who 
uttered the invitation and promise contained in our text. 

First, nothing, indeed, is more clearly revealed by the Scrip- 
tures than that Christ Himself is the Maker and the Upholder 
of all things ; that He is, in fact, the same being of whom 
Moses wrote in the first chapter of Genesis : " In the begin- 
ning God created the heaven and the earth." For example, 
after ages of tampering with the sacred text, and of ingenious 
criticism, of most unnatural transpositions and transformations 
of the words of the Holy Ghost contained in the first chap- 
ter of the Gospel by John, they still continue boldly and 
unshrinkingly to put all the glory of creation upon Christ, 
even as Moses put it upon Jehovah. " In the beginning was 
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was 
not anything made that was made." He having been made 
flesh, was in the world, and the world was made by Him, 
though the world knew Him not. Language could not be 
more explicit. The writer has so arranged his words, and so 
plainly put his thought into them, that his meaning cannot be 
mistaken. " The Word that was in the beginning with God, 



140 Christ the Object of Worship. [Serm. XV. 

and was God, and that was made flesh and dwelt among men," 
He, John declares, was the Supreme Creator. But he and 
Moses wrote under the inspiration of the same infallible Spirit 
who searches all things, even the deep things of God. They 
were both writing, therefore, of the same Being ; Moses of God 
revealed in creation alone ; John of God become man, and 
revealed in the flesh. 

Again, Paul writing to the Colossians takes up the same 
truth, and urges it home upon his readers with all the earnest- 
ness of his ardent and comprehensive mind : " By Him were 
all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, 
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him and 
for Him : and He is before all things, and by Him all things 
consist." 

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews takes up the same 
strain and presses it home upon the minds, not of those who 
had been heathen, but of those who had been taught from their 
infancy to know the Creator, and nominally, at least, to wor- 
ship Him under his true name : " God hath in these last days 
spoken unto us by his Son, whom He hath appointed heir of 
all things, by whom also He made the worlds, who being the 
brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, 
and upholding all things by the word of his power, when He 
had by Himself purged our sins sat down on the right hand of 
the Majesty on high." Still further on the writer says of God, 
— God in his invisible unrevealed Deity, — that He said to the 
Son, " Thou Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of 
the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands." 

Need we multiply quotations ? Are not these enough to set- 
tle the point beyond a doubt ? According to the Scriptures, 
then, the true and only manifestations of God to men have been 
made in and by the person of the eternal Son. The incompre- 
hensible and the inconceivable God dwelling in the light which 
no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen, or can 
see ; of whom, in his absolute and essential deity, men can form 
no conception, — He is manifested to men in the person of the 
Son. Without the manifestation of Himself by the act of crea- 
tion and of the continuance of creation, nothing could be known 
of Him. All that is known of Him, is known in and by the 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 141 

person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is God manifest. 
He is the image of the invisible God. Thus the whole tenor 
of revelation is a reiteration and confirmation and elucidation 
of our Saviour's words in the verse preceding our text, and 
from which the text receives its permanent and saving power : 
w No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom- 
soever the Son will reveal Him." It was upon this foundation 
that He planted Himself when He said with such tenderness, 
such majesty, and such authority, and with sweeping univer- 
sality : " Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." 

Many men are fond of talking of God as their Father, and 
of professing their faith in the Father who are, nevertheless, 
unwilling to give to Jesus Christ the honor to which He is ex- 
alted by the Scriptures, namely, of being the Creator and Up- 
holder of the universe, and the only manifestation of God to 
men. Leaving to Christ, it may be, everything but the acts 
and attributes by which God manifests Himself to us, they 
take these, namely, creation and upholding, from Him, and put- 
ting them — in their minds — upon some other being who has 
no existence, saving in their own imaginations, they name this 
being — this figment of their fancy — this unreal nothing — 
their Father, and worship it as their God. 

But the Father, according to the Scriptures, is not in his own 
proper personality the Creator, or the Upholder of the world. 
The Father of whom the Bible speaks is not known in his dis- 
tinct personality by any such manifestation. It is only in the 
personality of the Son that God is thus revealed ; and the Father 
— the representative of absolute, incomprehensible, and incon- 
ceivable deity — is known to us only as the Son reveals Him. 
He tells us of Him ; and calls Him Father ; but beyond this 
we cannot go. Our thoughts at once become lost when we at- 
tempt to go one step beyond our Saviour's person and works 
and words. We find ourselves in a shoreless sea which has 
neither surface nor soundings. Our lines of thought cannot 
measure it, nor our powers of comprehension conceive it. We 
are overwhelmed with deep, awful, impenetrable mystery. We 
hear a voice exclaiming, " Canst thou by searching find out 
God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? It 
is as high as heaven ; what canst thou do ? deeper than hell ; 
what canst thou know ? " 



142 Christ the Object of Worship. [Serm. xv. 

We are compelled to fall back then simply on the manifesta- 
tion of God made in creating and upholding, and there rest. 
But here we find only Christ, our blessed Saviour. It was by 
Him that all things were created. By Him alone do they sub- 
sist. He tells us of the Father. By faith we receive his word ; 
but beyond that word we cannot take a single step. He tells 
us of the Holy Spirit. If we attempt to conceive of Him out 
of the very words by which Christ reveals Him, again we are 
lost. All is vagueness, and perplexing speculation. 

Thus, my hearers, we are shut up to the Lord Jesus Christ 
as the only Being in whom we can behold God. He only is 
God manifest. He is the image of the invisible God. 

4. Here we find another argument in support of our inter- 
pretation and application of the words before us. The priv- 
ilege of the weary and heavy laden to come directly to Christ 
in prayer, and to commune with Him as the God and hope of 
their souls, is confirmed by the fact that the Scriptures direct 
us to look upon and to consider Christ as God revealed. It is 
not necessary, after what has been already said, to multiply 
passages in support of this assertion. Two or three will be 
enough. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John we are told 
by the Evangelist that " The Word (that was God, and that 
made all things) was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we 
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father, full of grace and truth." Matthew tells us that this 
becoming flesh and dwelling among men, was in fulfillment of 
the words of the Prophet Isaiah : " Behold, a virgin shall be 
with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his 
name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." 
Hence John says again, " No man hath seen God" — God in his 
simple and uncreated essence — the only begotten Son, who is 
in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared or revealed Him. 
He has made Him to be known. In harmony with all this are 
those words of the Lord Himself which are recorded in the 
fourteenth chapter of John, and which are so clear that they 
cannot be misunderstood : " I am the way, the truth, and the 
life : no man cometh unto the Father but by me. If ye had 
known me ye should have known my Father also : and from 
henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him. Philip saitli 
unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 143 

saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet 
hast thou not known me, Philip ? He that hath seen me, hath 
seen the Father ; and how sayest thou then, Show us the 
Father ? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the 
Father in me ? Believe me that I am in the Father, and the 
Father in me." 

In the light of these passages we can easily understand the 
words of the prophet Isaiah, as he looked down through the 
intervening ages and saw the day of the Messiah, and behold 
his glory and rejoiced in it. He saw Him who should swallow 
up death in victory, and wipe away all tears from the eyes of 
his people, and take away their rebuke from off all the earth. 
Then he exclaimed as though he felt himself actually carried 
forward to those glorious days, and living hi the times of the 
Redeemer, the incarnated Jehovah, whose coming had been the 
hope of all the godly in all ages and the burden of prophecy, 
he exclaimed, " So this is our God ; we have waited for Him, 
and He will save us : this is Jehovah ; we have waited for Him, 
we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." 

5. The remaining arguments to which I wish to call your 
attention, need but a moment's consideration. They grow out 
of what has been already said, and are only the authorized 
recognitions on earth and in heaven of the truth we have ad- 
vanced. 

The fifth argument for the understanding which we have of 
our text, and for the application which we wish to make of it, 
is found in the fact that the Scriptures plainly and repeatedly 
call our Redeemer God, and call upon all intelligent beings 
to worship Him as such. It is natural, and to be expected 
that they should do this. Indeed they could not but do it, if 
we have rightly interpreted their teachings. The first chapter 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, for example, is full of this style 
of address. " Unto the Son He saith, thy throne, O God, is 
for ever and ever. Let all the angels of God worship Him." 
In the first Epistle of Paul to Timothy we find this language, 
so exactly in harmony with the general teaching of the Scrip- 
tures on the subject, that all critical difficulties which some find 
in the passage vanish away from our minds. " God was man- 
ifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, 
preached unto the gentiles, believed on in the world, received 



144 Christ the Object of Worship. [Serm. XV. 

up into glory." " The Word was God," says John in his Gos- 
pel; and in his first Epistle he says, with the unshrinking 
boldness of one taught of the Spirit, " We are in Him that 
is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and 
eternal life." 1 

No wonder, then, that Paul, when he was speaking of the 
honor that had been vouchsafed to the Israelites, to whom per- 
tained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the 
giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises ; 
whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, 
Christ came ; no wonder that he should boldly declare of Him, 
that " He is over all, God blessed forever ! " No wonder that 
Thomas should cry out when he saw the Lord as He was, 
" My Lord and my God ! " 

6. This is the honor which our Redeemer has upon the 
earth. He is not less honored in heaven. This is the sixth 
argument for the application that we make of our text. The 
Bible plainly represents Christ to be the Being on whom the 
eyes of the heavenly inhabitants are fixed in adoration, and 
before whom they bow in holy worship : " And I beheld, and 
I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and 
the living beings, and the elders ; and the number of them was 
ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, 
saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to 
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, 
and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven 
and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are in the 
sea, and all that are in them heard I saying : Blessing and honor, 
and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four living be- 
ings said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down 
and worshipped Him that liveth for ever and ever." 

Are not the invitation and promise of our text permanent 
then ? and is it not filled with living force and with hope for 
us, my hearers ? It was He who is the same yesterday and 
to-day and forever, who spake them then ; it is He who speaks 
them now. They cannot, therefore, but abide in power, even 
as He himself abides. To whom can we go, if not to Him ? To 
whom can the needy and suffering betake themselves for refuge 
1 I am not unaware of the criticisms on this and the following passage. 



Matt. xi. 28.] Christ the Object of Worship. 145 

and relief, if not to God, in that person in whom, and by whom 
alone He has been pleased to make Himself known ? It was 
He who spake through the Prophet, " Look unto me, be ye 
saved, all the ends of the earth." 

It is He who says to-day, " Come unto me all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ; and him that 
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." 

10 



SERMON XVI. 

ONLY THE NAME OF JESUS SAVING. 



Acts iv. 12. — Neither is there salvation in any other : for there is none other name 
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. 

PETER had just healed the lame man who was laid daily 
at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to ask alms of those 
who were going up to worship. The miracle drew around 
Peter, and John who was with him on this occasion, a great 
multitude eager not only to look upon the man who had been 
so suddenly and miraculously cured of a life-long lameness, but 
to see the men who could wield such miraculous power. The 
Apostles, as they were always wont to do, promptly turned the 
minds of the people away from themselves as the supposed au- 
thors of the miracle to its real author ; and then began to 
preach Christ and his gospel to them. 

But " as they were speaking to the people, the priests and 
the rulers of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, 
being grieved that they taught the people, and preached 
through Jesus the resurrection from the dead." They arrested 
them, therefore, and cast them into prison. 

The next day they were brought before the Sanhedrim and 
interrogated, not touching the matter for which they had 
been arrested and imprisoned, but regarding the noted miracle 
which they had wrought. " By what power, or by what name 
have ye done this ? " they asked. Peter answered promptly 
and plainly that the lame man was healed by the name of 
Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Then, going forward to the true 
character of Jesus, he declared as promptly and as plainly that 
this Jesus was the Messiah, and that there could be no salva- 
tion but by Him ; that his name alone was the one which they 
and all other men must call upon if they would escape impend- 
ing ruin. 



Acts iv. 12.] Only the Name of Jesus Saving. 147 

It is manifest, therefore, that the salvation of which Peter 
spake was not simply the healing of bodily ailments, like the 
restoring to soundness of limb the man who had been lame 
from his birth. This salvation was one of the evidences of the 
truth that Peter and John were preaching, and it was pointed 
to by them simply to confirm the assertion which they made 
respecting Jesus of Nazareth, that He was the Christ. The 
salvation of which Peter spake was that salvation which, ac- 
cording to the Law and the Prophets, the Messiah had come 
into this world to accomplish — salvation from the wrath of 
God and from the dominion and penalty of sin. The salvation 
of which Peter spake was, therefore, the salvation which is set 
forth in those precious words of our Lord Himself : " God so 
loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." To this salvation the mind of Peter went as soon as he 
began to speak of Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy ; to this 
salvation he carried forward the minds of those to whom he 
was speaking: " Be it known unto you all, and to all the peo- 
ple of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, 
whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by 
Him doth this man stand here before you whole. And this," 
he added, instantly advancing to the great truth that was up- 
permost in his mind, and which he was commissioned to preach 
to all men, namely, the Messiahship of Jesus, " this is the stone 
which was set at naught by you builders, which, in fulfillment 
of prophecy, has become the head of the corner." 

The accused assumes the place of accuser. Becoming appar- 
ently unmindful of the fact that he is a prisoner at the bar of 
the supreme court of his nation, and looking now on the mem- 
bers of the Sanhedrim, not as his judges, but as guilty and 
ruined sinners, he charges their guilt home on their consciences 
with the severity of unshrinking faithfulness : You, even you, 
are the murderers of the Messiah. His crucifixion was your 
work. His blood is upon your garments. The avenger of in- 
nocent blood, the blood of the Holy One, the hope and consola- 
tion of Israel, is upon your track. Their case was desperate. 
They were ruined. 

But Peter, true to the spirit and office of a minister of the 
gospel, does not stop here. In the same sentence in which he 



148 Only the Name of Jesus Saving. [Serm. XVI. 

charges their terrible guilt upon their consciences, and reveals 
to them their ruin, he announces the possibility of pardon and 
salvation. They may yet be saved. There is hope for them, 
— but only in that same man whom they have so contemptu- 
ously rejected, and so foully murdered, — but whom God had 
raised from the dead, and in doing so had vindicated Him and 
his claims against all their hatred and contempt. By this very 
man, in whose name the lame man had been cured, by Him 
they may be saved from their guilt and ruin. But they can be 
saved by no other. 

Such is the salvation of which Peter spake to the Sanhedrim 
when he said, " Neither is there salvation in any other : foi 
there is none other name under heaven given among men, 
whereby we must be saved." 

It is to the latter clause of this verse to which your attention 
is particularly invited : " There is none other name under 
heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." The 
name is Jesus Christ. There is no other being on whom sin- 
ners may call for salvation — and their call be answered. The 
Apostle's words are clear and explicit. They are all-compre- 
hensive and all-exclusive. They apply to all classes of sinners, 
and cover all time. They reach back from the moment when 
Peter was giving them utterance to the first sinner to whom 
salvation was ever offered in this world ; and they stretch for- 
ward and take in the last human sinner to whom salvation will 
ever be given. There has been from the first, and to the last 
there will be, " none other name under heaven given among 
men whereby we must be saved." 

The word name, as you are well aware, means the being that 
bears it. It includes his personality, his power, his preroga- 
tives ; and to say that the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is 
the only one whereby men must be saved, is to say that Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth is the only person who acts as the Saviour 
of sinners ; that his is the only power that can reach a sinner 
in his wretchedness and ruin and deliver him, and that it is 
the prerogative of Jesus of Nazareth alone to save. No created 
being, not even the Archangel can save sinners ; the Father 
and the Holy Spirit will not in their own name save them. 
They have committed the business of salvation into the hands 
of the only begotten Son, and they will never trench on his 
prerogatives. 



Acts. iv. 12.] Only the Name of Jesus Saving. 149 

Such is the ground covered by our text. It is a single asser- 
tion ; an assertion made by divine authority and by divine in- 
spiration. Nothing can make it stronger : it is already, and 
just as it stands, the voice of the Almighty. It needs no proof, 
it is a divine revelation. It is also in perfect harmony with all 
else that has been revealed on the subject by the Word of God. 

Let us then accept the declaration and give our thoughts to 
a few of the lessons which it necessarily involves. 

1. Sinners cannot be saved by preaching to them the name 
of God. God is not the specific name that the gospel gives to 
the Saviour of sinners. It speaks of this Saviour as indeed 
God. It says distinctly that He is God, and that in Him 
dwells all the fullness of the Godhead. It is unequivocal and 
outspoken upon this point. It leaves us in no doubt about it. 
But yet God is not his specific name, nor the name by which 
He is to be preached, nor the name by which He is to be called 
on for salvation. 

The reason for this is plain. God is a general term, and is 
in general use by all classes of men to designate that con- 
ception of their minds, whatever it may be, which they have 
of a Supreme Being, whom they count an object of worship. 
All men have such an object of worship, and apply to it this 
name, in one form or another. It is the most general and com- 
prehensive of all designations for objects of religious worship. 
It is absolutely universal in this respect. If, therefore, the 
name of God were preached to men for their salvation, every 
one's mind would go at once to that object which he was ac- 
customed to count worthy of divine homage. He would sup- 
pose that this was the Being intended. His mind would there- 
fore stop with this Being, and rest in it. There would be no 
advance in his thoughts, or his knowledge, and no turning 
away from that which bore the name indeed of a real Being, 
but was, in fact, only a creation of his own fancy, or the work 
of his own hands. If he were directed to cry to God, and to 
call on the name of God for salvation he would call upon and 
cry only to the idol of his own conceiving or fashioning. He 
would cry in vain, therefore, — and for the same reason that 
the prophets of Baal cried in vain " from morning even until 
noon, saying, O Baal, hear us ! But there was no voice, nor 
any that answered." 



150 Only the Name of Jesus Saving. [Serk. xvi. 

As a matter of fact men have never lost the sentiment or 
notion of God from their minds. The fundamental idea of a 
Being to be worshipped, who has authority over men and is, 
to a greater or less extent, the arbiter of their destiny, has al- 
ways remained with them. But the true conception of the Be- 
ing and character of God has dropped out of their thoughts. 
This they have lost. " As they did not like to retain God in 
their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, and 
they changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and 
served the creature rather than the Creator." The conse- 
quence has been that the vague sentiment of God which has 
remained with them as a part of their very being, has gone 
forth blindly, like the instinctive clutchings of a drowning man, 
and laid hold of such objects as a sinful heart and a perverted 
imagination have chosen, and has deified these and fallen down 
and worshipped them as gods. In this manner, and from this 
cause the world has been filled with idols of untold number, 
and of infinite variety of character, and to each has been given 
the name of God. Athens, we are told, had thirty thousand 
of them. Ancient Egypt was as full of gods as of quadrupeds. 
Africa, ancient and modern, has as many gods as there are rep- 
tiles in its overteeming rivers and swamps and forests. A 
beastly fetichism has converted not only its reptiles but its 
wood and stone into gods. 

The consequence of this condition of things is that in a god- 
less world yet crowded full of gods, the name God, of itself, 
determines nothing. To the thoughtful and earnest mind the 
question will come home, as often as the name of God is 
preached to it. Who is God ? What is God ? To which of 
the countless beings and objects that bear this name does it 
truly belong ? Does it belong to any ? Is it not the name of 
that which men conceive to be, but which is not ? 

This question of who is God, was the precise point in con- 
troversy, you remember, between Elijah and the prophets of 
Baal on the occasion to which we just alluded. This appears 
more clearly when we read the passage with the specific name 
Jehovah, in place of the general term, Lord. Baal's prophets 
claimed that Baal was God, and they had seduced a large part 
of the nation to believe and practice as they taught. Elijah, 
on the contrary, clung to the old belief that Jehovah and not 



acts iv. 12.J Only the NcCme of Jesus Saving. 151 

Baal, nor any other being, real or imaginary, was God ; and 
his exhortation to the backslidden and hestitating people was, 
" If Jehovah be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." 
Hence his prayer in the presence of this people was, " O Jeho- 
vah, hear me, that this people may know that thou art God." 
And when the fire came down, in answer to his prayer, " and 
consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and 
the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench," the 
people acknowledged that the contest between Elijah and the 
prophets of Baal was fairly decided in favor of the God of 
Elijah. " They fell on their faces, and said, Jehovah is God, 
Jehovah is God." All vagueness and indefiniteness of thought 
were banished from their minds, and He who had revealed 
Himself to their fathers, to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, 
and to Moses, under the name of Jehovah, and who had so often 
and so signally manifested Himself in all their history as God 
indeed, besides whom there was no other, became a definite, 
distinct, clearly apprehended Being to their thoughts. If they 
had followed up this momentary conviction, and become the 
true worshippers and servants of Jehovah, their ruin might 
have been averted. The name of Jehovah would have become 
their tower of strength, and wrought out for them a national 
and a personal salvation. 

This leads me to remark that, in perfect harmony with the 
assertion of the Apostle in our text, the Scriptures of the New 
Testament uniformly represent that Jesus Christ is the only 
personal manifestation of God under the new dispensation as 
Jehovah was under the old, — the only manifestation, that is, 
on which men can look and get a distinct conception of Him as 
a Being, a Person. They testify with one voice that no man 
hath seen God — in his absolute essence — at any time. The 
only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath 
made Him known. God, in his absolute essence, is He of 
whom the Apostle Paul says that u He dwells in light which 
no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen, nor can 
see ; " but who had been revealed to men in the person of the 
only begotten Son. It was He who made the worlds, and 
manifested God in creation. It is He who governs the uni- 
verse and manifests God in providence. It is He who has 
power on earth to forgive sins, and uses that power in saving 



152 Only the Name of Jesus Saving. [Serm. xvi 

the guilty and condemned from death, and manifests God in re- 
demption. He is thus to the apprehension of men God the 
Creator, Ruler, Redeemer. There is no manifestation of God 
that has not been made by Him, and in his person. To the 
patriarchs and prophets He was Jehovah ; to the Apostles and 
to us He is Jesus. His name is specific. It designates a dis- 
tinct and clearly manifested Being, — a Being of well defined 
character and of definite acts. Our minds can look upon Him, 
can commune with Him, can rest in Him, and depend upon 
Him. His being and character are not lost in a vague general- 
ness, nor do they withdraw themselves into dim and shadowy 
unrealness ; but they stand out clear, manifest, unmistakable. 
They who come to Him for salvation are able to say, each one 
of them, with the definiteness and positiveness of the great 
Apostle, " I know whom I have believed." 

The experiment has often been tried, of preaching the name 
of God to men for their salvation ; and, as often as tried, has 
proved an entire failure. You remember the incident in the 
history of the Moravian missionaries among the Greenlanders : 
Long and patiently did they preach God to them, — God the 
Creator ; God the Ruler ; God the All-wise, the All-knowing, 
and the Almighty, — but never lifted their dark and vacant 
minds out of the vagueness of the general designation to which 
they had always been accustomed, by pointing them to the per- 
son in whom alone the being and character of God are made 
known. As a last and desperate resort they began to preach 
Jesus Christ to them. The effect was instantaneous. The 
Holy Spirit, whose office it is to convince men of sin because 
they believe not on Him, and to reveal to the minds of men the 
things of Christ, took the preaching of that sacred name and 
made it the power of God to their salvation. Their dull and 
dreamy notion of God was quickened into vigorous life, and 
being directed to God made manifest, it awakened their whole 
moral nature to activity and intense earnestness. They then 
began to know who God was. They saw what He was. They 
apprehended his character. They felt the greatness of his love 
and were subdued before it into penitence, and inspired with 
faith and loving obedience. From that hour the mission to 
Greenland was no longer a failure. The name of Jesus wrought 
mightily, and the salvation of great numbers attested its virtue 
and its power. 



Acts iv. 12.] Only the Name of Jesus Saving. 153 

It has always been so in Christian missions. No other name 
but that of Jesus has ever won the heathen from their idols to 
the worship of the only living and true God. All other names 
have left them still in darkness and death. And it is the same 
wherever salvation is preached, not alone among the heathen 
but in the most Christianized communities. Preach to men in 
general terms of God, and they go on in death, and in devotion 
to some form of worldliness. Preach Jesus to them, let them 
see God in Him, and let them know by seeing Him who God 
is, what He is, what his heart is towards them in all their 
wretchedness and guilt, — do this and we soon find that we 
are using that instrumentality by which the Holy Spirit is ever 
wont to bring sinners to seek after and obtain salvation. When 
men preach Jesus Christ, preach Him faithfully, preach Him 
crucified, preach Him Lord, it becomes manifest the world 
over and in all time, that his name was rightly chosen by the 
angel, when he said, " Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for He 
shall save his people from their sins." 

2. Another inference from the words which we are consid- 
ering is, that sinners cannot be saved by preaching to them the 
name of the Father. 

This is a favorite substitute with many for the name of Jesus 
Christ. If their ministry were interrogated it would testify 
that they had determined, not as did Paul, to know nothing 
among the people, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified ; but 
the Father, and Him, not as revealed in the Gospels, but as 
their imaginations painted Him, and as they, in common with 
the philosophers of the heathen world, can conceive of Him 
without any aid from a special divine revelation. And thus it 
has happened that a new gospel is to-day widely preached ; a 
gospel that proclaims salvation in the assumed fatherhood of 
God, instead of salvation in Christ crucified. 

But there are two very obvious reasons, if we take the Bible 
for our guide, why sinners cannot be saved by this preaching. 
In the first place, it is false. God is not the Father of men in 
the high and peculiar sense of that term, until they have al- 
ready been saved. Until then they are not the children of God. 
Until then they do not belong to the family of God, but are by 
nature " children of wrath." This is the uniform testimony 
of the New Testament. Until sinners have been saved through 



154 Only the Name of Jesus Saving. [Sekm. xvi. 

the mercy of Christ, from condemnation and death, they are 
strangers and enemies, without God and without hope in the 
world. God commendeth his love toward us in that while we 
were yet enemies Christ died for us. After salvation comes 
adoption. After reconciliation and pardon as rebels and ene- 
mies to the government of God, comes the investiture with 
sonship. Hence our Lord said to those who rejected Him, " If 
God were your Father, ye would love me." " Ye are of your 
father the devil." 

To preach to men not yet saved by Jesus Christ, that God 
is their Father, is therefore both to contradict the words of 
Christ, and to put one's self in direct antagonism to the whole 
tenor of Scriptural teaching regarding the character of the im- 
penitent and unbelieving, and their relations to God. The 
work of salvation must be wrought for them and in them 
before they can truthfully call God their Father. In order to 
sonship with God they must first be born of God. By the new 
birth alone does the sinner become a child of God. " That 
which is born of the flesh is flesh." 

This great salvation none can secure for sinners but He 
who has been exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repent- 
ance and remission of sins. To Him alone must men be com- 
mended, to Him alone they must go for the salvation by which 
they become the children of God, and God becomes their 
Father. 

Another reason why men cannot be saved by preaching to 
them the name of the Father is, that they do not know the 
Father, and they cannot know Him until He is revealed to 
them by the Son. As He only has manifested God to the in- 
tellect of the world, so He only makes the Father known to 
the sinful soul. This is his own explicit declaration : " No 
man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever 
the Son will reveal Him." " No man cometh unto the Father 
but by me." " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 

That Being, therefore, to whom men give the name of the 
Father, before they have been savingly enlightened by Jesus 
Christ, and have come to the Father by Him, and seen the 
Father in Him, is not the Father. It is not God. It is a crea- 
tion of men's fancy ; and is as much an idol as anything that 
ever received the homage of ancient Roman and Greek, or of 
modern Brahmin or Buddhist. 



Acts iv. 12.] Only the Name of Jesus Saving. 155 

He, therefore, who sees the Father, sees Him first of all in 
Christ Jesus. If one sees not the Father in Him, one sees Him 
not at all. Christ is the gift of the Father's love. In Christ 
alone is the manifestation of the Father's heart towards men. 
Through Christ alone does the Father's voice reach the ears of 
men. For Christ is the Word of God. He, therefore, who has 
the heart of a son towards God, is moved to love as a child by 
first beholding the love of God as a father in the giving of his 
only-begotten Son. He who truly sees God as his Father, sees 
the Father's heart in that of Jesus Christ. He who truly 
hears himself called a child of God, hears the glad sound first 
in the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. He who has the spirit 
of adoption, and cries from the heart, " Abba, Father," as he 
looks to the throne of a holy God and righteous lawgiver, has 
that spirit, and cries thus to God, because he has been par- 
doned as a penitent sinner by Him who alone has power on 
earth to forgive sins, and has been clothed by Him with the 
robe, and endowed with the prerogatives of sonship. " To as 
many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the 
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." 

This is the position which the Scriptures assign to Jesus 
Christ. He is the only Saviour of sinners. His is the only 
name on which they can call and find salvation. He only 
makes God known to men as the Father ; He alone brings 
them into such relations to God that He becomes their Father 
and they his children. 

The Apostle Paul was looking upon Jesus Christ in just this 
light when he commended Him so highly to the Philippians, 
and declared that his name had become higher than that of 
any other being, and that to which all creatures should sooner 
or later render homage : " Let this mind be in you which was 
in Christ Jesus : who being in the form of God, thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God ; but made Himself of no rep- 
utation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was 
made in the likeness of men ; and being found in fashion as a 
man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, 
even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly 
exalted Him (after He had humbled Himself) and given Him 
a name which is above every name ; that at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow of beings in heaven, and beings in 



156 Only the Name of Jesus Saving. [Serm. xvl 

earth, and beings under the earth ; and that every tongue 
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
the Father." 

It was not the language of mistaken zeal, therefore, that Dod- 
dridge used when he wrote those tender and earnest words, — 

" Jesus, I love thy charming name ; 
'Tis music to mine ear; 
Fain would I sound it out so loud 
That earth and heaven might hear." 

Nor was it the enthusiasm and exultation of an idolater that 
moved Duncan when he wrote that majestic hymn, begin- 
ning, — 

"All hail the power of Jesus' name! 
Let angels prostrate fall : 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all." 

Nor was it the fondness of a mistaken faith doomed to sad dis- 
appointment that inspired Watts to write so devoutly, — 

" People and realms of every tongue 
Dwell on his love with sweetest song : 
And infant voices shall proclaim 
Their early blessings on his name. 

" Let every creature rise and bring 
Peculiar honors to our king : 
Angels descend with songs again, 
And earth repeat the loud Amen ! " 

All these writers, and all who exalt the name of Jesus, mak- 
ing it the watchword of hope to a ruined world, the talisman 
of salvation to the lost, the eternal joy of the saved, are mov- 
ing within the limits of Scriptural example and command. 
They are as one with the Father and the Holy Spirit ; as one 
with all the holy angels ; as one with all inspired men ; as one 
with all the ransomed in heaven. 

3. The third inference from the words before us therefore, 
is, that they who turn away from Jesus Christ and refuse the 
salvation that He offers them, must be lost. 

There is no other being in the universe on whom they can 
call for salvation, and be answered. There is no other Saviour 
known in heaven. God has provided no other salvation for 
lost men but that which Christ offers them. The Holy Ghost 
reveals no other Saviour to those whom He convinces of sin. 



Acts iv. 12.] Only the Name of Jesus Saving. 157 

Let me urge this thought on your serious attention, my 
dying hearers. You are shut up to the grace and mercy of this 
one Being, Jesus Christ, if you would live. Your sins can 
never be forgiven unless Jesus Christ becomes your propitia- 
tion. You can never become a child of God, never an heir of 
heaven, unless Jesus Christ shall make you one. There is 
salvation in no other : " for there is none other name under 
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." 

This is the reason why He himself says to you, " He that 
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth 
not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
him." This is the reason why He commissioned his disciples 
to preach to every creature, declaring in his name and by his 
authority, " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; 
but he that believeth not shall be damned." 

It is with this commission that this young servant of Christ 
comes to you now to take the pastoral oversight of this people. 
He is Christ's messenger to you. His one work is to proclaim 
salvation to you in Christ's name and perfect you in that salva- 
tion. 1 

1 Preached at the ordination of Walter W. Hammond, as pastor of Pierrepont 
Street Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., Thursday evening, September 10, 1868. 



SERMON XVII. 

HOW JESUS SPAKE. 



John vii. 46. — Never man spake like this man. 

GREAT multitudes were now flocking to Jesus and attend- 
ing upon his ministry. As they heard his instructions, 
saw his miracles, and felt the influence of his presence, they 
began to be convinced that He was the Christ, and they were 
declaring their convictions aloud. 

The Pharisees and chief priests became alarmed at this 
movement among the people, and sent officers to arrest Him 
and bring Him before the Sanhedrim. But when they came 
where He was and heard Him speaking to the crowds about 
Him they could not execute their commission. There was a 
something in his person and bearing that struck them with 
awe. His words fell upon their ears with a strange and mys- 
terious power. They were helpless before Him, though they 
had come armed with all the authority of the highest court of 
the nation. 

They returned without Him, therefore, to the Pharisees and 
chief priests ; and, to the inquiry, " Why have ye not brought 
Him ? " their reply was, " Never man spake like this man." 
They gave no explanation : they offered no excuse. They had 
felt the restraining power of the Lord's presence, and yielded 
to the subduing influence of his words. They probably did not 
understand clearly why they had returned without accomplish- 
ing the object for which they had been sent ; and it was im- 
possible, doubtless, for them to give a satisfactory reason for 
their strange conduct. 

Other passages in the Gospels bring to light this same awe- 
inspiring and subduing power of the Lord's presence and words. 
It is said, for example, by Luke, that those who heard his dis- 
courses, " were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was 



John vii. 46.] How Jesus Spake. 159 

with power." Again, on a memorable occasion when He had 
put the Sadducees to silence in their attempts to confound Him, 
and had so replied to the quibbling interrogatories of the 
Pharisees that they were silenced also ; from that day forth, 
says the Evangelist, no man durst ask Him any more ques- 
tions. They were unable to withstand the power of his words, 
and they feared again to provoke that power against them- 
selves. 

A still more marked example, resembling the one before us, 
is that given by the Evangelist John, — when the hour of our 
Lord's final sufferings was near. Again officers were sent out to 
arrest Him and bring Him before the Sanhedrim. He saw them 
coming, and " went forth to meet them ; and said unto them, 
Whom seek ye? They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. 
Jesus said unto them, I am he. As soon then as He had said 
unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the 
ground." 

You will call to mind also that interesting scene described by 
the Evangelist Luke, when the parents of Jesus found Him in 
the temple, when He was but twelve years old, " sitting in the 
midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them 
questions. And all that heard Him were astonished at his un- 
derstanding and answers." 

There was ever this mysterious power in the presence of 
Jesus, and this majesty in his speech. Men could never trifle 
with Him, nor treat his words with levity. Nor has this in- 
fluence left his words as they have come down to our own times. 
The experience of the officers of the Jewish Sanhedrim has 
been repeated in every age, and among all people who have 
heard or read the words of Jesus in the Gospel. They reach, 
and move the hearts of men, and arouse their consciences. 
They compel solemn and earnest thought in view of the respon- 
sibilities of human fife. They awaken awe and reverence in 
view of the certainty of a coming judgment, and the realities 
of eternity. Few, indeed, are they who in any age have read 
the words of Jesus with careful attention, that have not, at 
one time or another found themselves uttering the same words 
that the officers used in their reply to the question of the San- 
hedrim. There are thousands now, in all parts of the world, 
that daily close the New Testament, if not with the exclama- 



160 How Jesus Spake. [Serm. xvii. 

tion, certainly with the vivid conviction, " Never man spake 
like this man." There is a something in his words, something 
in the way in which He speaks, that distinguishes Him from all 
other religious teachers, and gives what He says a power that is 
found in no other writings. 

Let us give our attention for a few minutes to the style of 
our Saviour's address, the manner in which He spake. Where- 
in, so far as we can discover, was his manner of speaking unlike 
that of other great teachers ? 

1. The first thing that we notice is the air of authority with 
which the words of Jesus are spoken. They seem to be the 
utterances of one who was conscious, not only of a right, but of 
a divine commission, to speak ; and who regarded those whom 
He addressed as under obligation to heed whatever He taught, 
and to obey all that He commanded. It is the same whatever 
the subject of which He treats. If He speaks as a revealer of 
hidden truth, making known the deep mysteries of the divine 
nature, and of human destiny, He speaks as one whose preroga- 
tive it is to reveal hidden things, and to require men to give 
attention to them. If He utters words of counsel and consola- 
tion to the ignorant and afflicted, He does it as one who knows 
that his counsel is more than advice ; that it is binding on the 
consciences of those to whom He gives it ; that His consola- 
tions are more than the expression of sympathy, that they bring 
those to whom He ministers under obligation to receive them, 
and be comforted. If He opens his mouth to pronounce 
censure and rebuke, it is as one whose censure is a divine, con- 
demnation, and whose rebuke is the admonition and warning 
of heaven. 

It is the same whatever the circumstances in which He is 
placed. Though a lad of but twelve years, He sits among the 
doctors in the temple as one who has a right to be there ; and 
not only answers their questions, as one having authority to 
teach the teachers of the nation, but asks them questions also 
as one whose prerogative it is to sit in judgment on them, and 
hold them to an account for the manner in which they discharge 
their office, and for the matter that enters into their instruc- 
tions. And, though He is a dutiful son, living in loving and 
filial subjection to his parents, yet there is the tone of defer- 
ential authority, and of conscious lordship, held in obedient 



John vii. 46.] How Jesus Spake. 161 

submission to his mother, when He responds to her amazed 
inquiry, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us ? Behold thy 
father and I have sought thee sorrowing." There is no dis- 
respect, but there is authority in submission, when He replies : 
" How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not that I must be 
about my Father's business ? " 

When one of the first men of the nation came to Him and 
patronizingly confessed the conviction of the principal relig- 
ious teachers that He was one commissioned of God, Jesus, so 
far from seeming flattered by such attentions, and receiving 
the patronage as something for which He ought humbly to 
acknowledge his indebtedness, responds in such a manner as re- 
veals to Nicodemus, and makes him keenly realize that he is 
dealing with one who cannot be looked down upon, but must 
be looked up to. He cannot be patronized. He is rather one 
who has patronage to bestow, and from whom men may re- 
ceive it too and not lose their manhood and self-respect. To 
Nicodemus' confession, " Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher 
come from God : for no man can do these miracles that thou 
doest, except God be with him," Jesus responds with the air 
of a superior invested with authority over the rulers them- 
selves : " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born 
again he cannot see the kingdom of God." There is scarcely 
anything in all the Scriptures, not even the giving of the Law 
that was promulgated amid thunderings and lightnings, and 
the manifestation of the divine presence on Sinai, that is more 
imperial in its tone than these solemn words of the young and 
despised Nazarene to the Jewish ruler. He never abated this 
authoritative tone in his dealings with the leading men of the 
nation, and the members of the Sanhedrim. He always spoke 
to them as one having authority to judge them, to teach them, 
to warn and rebuke them for their sins, and to offer pardon 
and salvation to them on his own conditions. Even when He 
had permitted Himself to come unto their hands, and was ar- 
raigned before them as a blasphemer, and then handed over to 
Pilate for punishment, as a malefactor, his bearing is still that 
of a king. Whether we look at his calm and dignified silence, 
as He submits Himself without a murmur or complaint to their 
brutal indignities, or to the few and pithy replies He makes to 
the direct questions of those who have Him in their power, 
11 



162 How Jesus Spake. [Skkm. xvii. 

both his silence and his words are alike the expression of an 
unruffled consciousness of superiority and of Lordship. The 
same is true of all that He uttered while He was hanging on 
the cross. He still spake as a prince, and his words were with 
power. Look at the two last sentences that fell from his lips : 
" When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple standing by 
whom He loved, He saith unto his mother, Woman, behold 
thy son. Then said He to the disciple, Behold thy mother. 
And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own 
home." His words were spoken in infinite love and tender- 
ness, but they were spoken to be obeyed. Both the mother 
and the disciple so received them, and yielded the obedience of 
devoted love and profound reverence. The last sentence of all 
bears the same impress of sovereignty: " It is finished." He 
is conscious of his mission and of its purpose ; and as his work 
comes before Him in review He passes sentence upon it for 
Himself. With unfaltering confidence He pronounces his work 
" finished." They are the words of one who feels that He has 
the right to judge and pronounce for Himself upon his own 
mission ; and authority to declare the purpose of his mission 
accomplished. 

Thus it is that the whole bearing of Jesus, from the first to the 
last of his earthly history, makes an impression on the reader 
similar to that which was made on the people who heard his 
Sermon on the Mount. The Evangelist says that it came to 
pass that " when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people 
were astonished at his doctrine ; for He taught them as one 
having authority, and not as the scribes." The tone and man- 
ner of his words amid the tempest on the sea run through all 
that He spoke among men : " He rose and rebuked the wind, 
and said unto the sea, Peace ; be still. And the wind ceased, 
and there was a great calm. And the disciples feared exceed- 
ingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, 
that even the wind and the sea obey him ! " 

It was not an air of authority put on, — the state and dig- 
nity of a prince assumed ; but it was the spirit of authority 
dwelling in Him as a part of his own being, and going forth 
from Him, as the rays of light and heat go forth from the sun, 
and making itself felt in silent might and majesty. It is this 
influence that makes itself felt now wherever his word goes, 



John vii. 46.] How Jesus Spake. 163 

and is slowly but surely bringing the public opinion of the 
world into harmony with his morality, and enthroning his relig- 
ion in the understandings and hearts of mankind. It is this 
power that is coveted and pretended to by all false religions, 
from Buddhism to the Papacy and a godless High-churchism, 
but which they cannot obtain or wield. Their assumptions of 
it become — to all save the darkest minded, and the most hope- 
lessly enslaved vassals of superstition and ignorance — most 
ludicrous and bombastic absurdities. The very words, which, 
on the lips of Jesus, are fitting and never excite in any intelli- 
gent and candid mind the sense of incongruity, become solemn 
mockery or ridiculous pretentiousness when uttered by pope 
or bishop or priest. 

This spirit of authority with which the words of Jesus are 
instinct when uttered by Himself, or in his name, and espe- 
cially when brought home to the heart and conscience by the 
Holy Ghost, is that which gives power and effectiveness to the 
truth in the conviction of sin, and in imparting to the penitent 
a sense of pardon and an assurance of acceptance with God. It 
is because Christ's words are words of divine authority that 
they bow the stubborn and rebellious heart of the sinner, and 
force him to cry for mercy ; and it is because they are words of 
authority that that same heart, believing in the promise of par- 
don made to faith, receives the promise and goes from the 
mercy-seat having peace with God through our Lord Jesus. 
Christ, rejoicing in hope of eternal life. 

In the tone of calm, dignified, self-evidencing authority that 
is in the words of Jesus, it is true that " never man spake like 
this man." 

2. Another characteristic of our Saviour's manner of speak- 
ing is found in the quiet, unostentatious claim which He evi- 
dently makes to perfect knowledge of every matter of which 
He treats. 

He never speculates, nor theorizes ; He never guesses or bal- 
ances probabilities ; He does not even argue and reason upon 
the subjects of which He speaks. He always speaks as one 
who knows ; and there is that in his bearing that begets, in 
those who hear, an assurance that He does know everything 
whereof He affirms. Whether He speaks of the secret thoughts 
of men's hearts, or of the hitherto unrevealed purposes of God, 



164 How Jesus Spake. [Serm. xvii. 

He speaks in calm, clear, unfaltering tones, with the ease and 
naturalness and unsuspecting assurance of one who is familiar 
with these thoughts and purposes, and knows that there is no 
possibility of his being in error. " Behold an Israelite indeed, 
in whom there is no guile," said He as He saw Nathanael ap- 
proaching Him. Nathanael felt at once that Jesus knew him. 
He was astonished at the fact, but he could not question it. 
His response was, therefore, " Whence knowest thou me ? " 
Jesus answered and said unto him, " Before that Philip called 
thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee." This was 
enough for the true-hearted and guileless Nathanael. There 
was something in the words of Jesus which assured him that 
there was a divine knowledge in them. His heart, therefore, 
went out spontaneously to Him, and he made an immediate 
confession of Him as the Messiah : " Rabbi, thou art the Son 
of God ; thou art the king of Israel ! " And thus, onward to 
the end of his ministry, his bearing among those who were with 
Him and heard his words, convinced them that "He needed 
not that any should testify of man : for He knew what was in 
man." Those who came under the influence of his presence 
and teachings could appreciate the saying of the woman of 
Samaria : " Come, see a man that told me all things that ever 
I did." 

It was the same when He spoke of God. There was no un- 
certainty in his tones. In all He said of God there was that 
which seemed to repeat the words that He had said to Nico- 
demus : "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have 
seen." And a candid reading of his words now will, and yet 
always does carry conviction to the mind of the reader, that 
the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father hath 
declared Him. 

Not only God and man, but time and eternity, are naked 
and open to his view ; and He treats of them with the same 
calm confidence with which He speaks of the most familiar 
objects of his daily life. The relations of men to each other 
and to God, and the great principles that enter into these rela- 
tions, and determine their duties and responsibilities, these are 
all treated in the same manner. He knows ; he therefore as- 
serts, but does not speculate. 

It is this characteristic of our Saviour's teachings that gives 



JohxvH. 46.] How Jesus Spake. 165 

them such an air of positiveness. He declares that things are, 
and that things are not. He announces unhesitatingly that 
things will be, and that things will not be. He affirms, with- 
out any attempt at proof, — his own words carrying convic- 
tion, because they are stamped with the impress of knowledge, 
— that certain things ought to be, and ought to be done, and 
that certain other things ought not to be, and ought not to be 
done. He commands and forbids with an air of absolute cer- 
tainty that what He commands is right, and what He forbids is 
wrong ; and the same seal of knowledge carries conviction to 
those who hear Him, that He is right when He commands and 
when He forbids. In fine, there never appears to be the shadow 
of distrust or uncertainty in his language, as though it was 
possible for Him to be mistaken. 

Yet his positiveness is not that of dogmatism and self-con- 
ceit. It is the farthest possible from that of ignorance and 
narrow-mindedness, or of scanty and superficial knowledge. 
There is, therefore, nothing arrogant about it ; nothing that 
is offensive ; nothing that seems unnatural, and out of har- 
mony with that gentleness and love and tenderness, and nice 
appreciation of fitness, which always gives such a charm to his 
character and presence. 

With men generally, the most positive characters are those 
whose range of thought is most narrow. Those who are most 
positive in their general bearing and speech are those who 
know the least concerning the things of which they are most 
ready to speak. Enlarge their range of thought and they will 
become more humble. Add to their knowledge, and they will 
manifest far less certainty that they are always and in all 
things right, and competent to sit in judgment on any matter 
that may come before them. The wisest men are certain of but 
few things. They have arrived at a knowledge of these, and 
they treat of them with modest assurance. They trust in 
them confidently, and cautiously extend their inferences from 
them till they come to judgments, more or less satisfactory, 
regarding other things, as the things they know cast on these 
other things a clearer or more obscure light. With them there 
is positiveness as far as there is knowledge ; and as their posi- 
tiveness is manifestly the fruit of knowledge, it is not offen- 
sive to others. Men do not disrelish it, nor shrink from it, 
and condemn it in their hearts, as a thing unseemly. 



166 Row Jesus Spake. [Serm. xvn. 

This is the character of our Saviour's positiveness. It is 
that of one conscious of an absolute and perfect knowledge of 
everything concerning which He speaks. He asserts it because 
He knows it. Those who listen to Him are impressed with 
the conviction that what He says He knows. This is the 
reason why there is nothing dogmatical in his bearing, and 
why those who hear Him speak are not only not offended with 
his positiveness, but are won by it, and rest in it, with a sense 
of perfect security. 

It is this tone of positiveness that gives the words of Jesus 
such power over the hearts of men whose minds cannot be 
satisfied with uncertainties. Such men yearn for something 
sure to rest their faith upon. They cannot accept mere rea- 
sonings. They feel that there is the possibility of error in the 
most specious and logical of arguments. They cannot accept 
mere inference from premises that seem to be well established. 
If the premises are right, there may be nevertheless an error 
in the inference. They must have the dicta of absolute knowl- 
edge. They cannot be satisfied with anything short of the 
positive assertion of one who knows and cannot be mistaken. 

This is in fact the condition of mind of every earnest in- 
quirer after the will of God, and the way of salvation. He is 
beyond the point where mere argument is needed. He has 
been speculating and reasoning, it may be, on the great ques- 
tions that pertain to his relations to God and eternity, and has 
amused himself and others by his speculations. But now all 
this is vain and trifling. He is in earnest now to lay hold on 
eternal life. He has now come to realize that he is in need 
of mercy and pardon ; and he must know the terms on which 
they can be obtained. He cannot be satisfied now with any- 
thing short of absolute and positive declaration from the foun- 
tain of authority itself. He wants to be commanded, that he 
may obey. He craves assertion, that he may believe. His 
whole soul demands distinct and positive declarations and 
promises that he may trust and be at peace. 

It is just suited to the necessities of the soul, then, that the 
religion that saves it is a religion of faith. It must go out of 
itself, and rest in God. It cannot trust in any of its own proc- 
essess of thought, nor in any of the conclusions to which these 
processes may lead it. It must go out of all these and find 
rest in simple, childlike confidence in what God has said. 



John vii. 46.] Hoiv Jesus Spake. 167 

This is the whole philosophy of faith, and of salvation by- 
faith. It is an impossibility that the soul should feel secure 
resting in anything but the word of divine authority and of 
divine knowledge. 

The philosophy of rationalism is exactly the opposite of 
this. It cannot endure authority. It cannot put up with 
positiveness. It must evermore float on the current of its own 
speculations, and amuse itself with its own vagaries. But it 
can never find peace. It can never be assured. The religion 
of rationalism can never appropriate the language of Paul, " I 
know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able 
to keep that which I have committed to Him." 

The philosophy of churchism is based on this principle of 
authority and of positiveness ; but it traces authority to a false 
source. It bids the soul trust, not in the word of Christ, not 
in his authority and knowledge, but in the dictum of a self- 
constituted priesthood, and in the ceremonies of a pretentious 
human organization arrogating to itself solely the name of 
Christ's Church. It speaks in the name of Christ and claims 
for its ceremonies and appointments Christ's authority. But 
the power of real authority is wanting. To the earnest soul, 
seeking for life, all the appliance of churchism, or, what is the 
same thing, ritualism, are a sham and a cheat. After it has 
gone through with them all, it still cries out for something 
that can give it peace with God. And it is not until it can 
hear the voice that stilled the tempest and raised the dead, 
speaking in revelation and commanding it what to do, that it 
can find rest. There is authority and knowledge in his words 
when such a soul hears them, and therefore it can take them 
and feel secure. When it hears them it is satisfied, and says, 
with a meaning unknown to the officers of the Sanhedrim, 
" Never man spake like this man." 



SERMON XVIII. 

THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST THE GROUND OF 

HOPE. 



1 Peter i. 3. — Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, accord- 
ing to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

A LIVELY hope is a living hope. The Apostle's word is 
the same that is used by the sacred writers when they 
speak of God as the " living " God, to distinguish Him from 
the lifeless idols of the heathen. The hope into which a be- 
liever is begotten is called a living hope, because it is full of 
activity and power, like the living God ; and is not dormant 
and inoperative, like the dead divinities of idolaters. It is a 
hope moved also and sustained by intelligence and thought 
and knowledge. It therefore imparts life and energy and pur- 
pose to the whole soul that indulges it. But the hopes im- 
parted to men by the fables and false religions of the world 
were vague, indefinite, ignorant, thoughtless ; and hence, for 
the most part, they were utterly powerless to influence the life, 
or shape the character of those who indulged them. 

Nothing could be more gloomy and desolate than was the 
condition of the world in its hopes — rather, its hopelessness — 
respecting a future life when our Saviour came among men. 
Their minds were full of speculation ; but full also of doubt 
and uncertainty. They were the prey of indefinite yearnings 
and fearful apprehensions. But there was no knowledge, no 
certainty, no assurance, no well-defined expectations. All was 
dark and unsatisfying, powerless to awaken and sustain hope, 
or to give elevation and purpose to thought and life. The 
grave was the only thing in the future of which they were 
sure. All beyond was dark and repellant to their imagina- 
tion ; to their knowledge it was blank uncertainty. 



l Pet. i. 3.] The Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 169 

This was the dismal state of all those to whom the gospel of 
Christ came. They had no certain hold on a life beyond the 
present. There was nothing in the world's experience, or 
speculations and reasonings, that gave or could give any assur- 
ance of a life after death. But the gospel came to men, not 
only asserting such a life, but demonstrating its existence. It 
asserted it not as the surmise or the conclusion of a philosopher, 
but as the revelation of one who had showed Himself worthy 
to be believed as a messenger come from God. Then, by an 
amount of evidence that could not be set aside, and so simple, 
so clear, so satisfactory that candor and intelligence could not 
question its truthfulness, it proved that this same messenger, 
after He had been murdered by his enemies, had risen from the 
dead, and, in his own person, become an example of that living 
again after death which He had revealed as the destiny of all 
men. Like the return of Columbus from the western conti- 
nent, He had declared his belief of its existence. On his re- 
turn he could say, " I have seen it," and men could say it is 
there, for here is a man who has been there. 

But this is only the lower immortality, — that of which the 
world dreamed and speculated, — not that which the gospel re- 
vealed to men as an object of desire. This immortality of mere 
existence, the gospel declared, might be an object that men 
ought to dread rather than covet. The true immortality con- 
sists not in the fact of an existence after death, nor in the eter- 
nal duration of this existence, but in its character. Men 
might exist after death, and their existence be one of misery. 
This the gospel declared would be the lot of all final enemies of 
God and holiness. The existence after death is true immortal- 
ity only as it is an existence in bliss and in the favor of God. 

The first kind of immortality — the highest that was con- 
ceived of by the world — was only existence in death, just as 
the life of an unregenerate sinner now is life in" death. He is 
dead in trespasses and sins, though in the lower sense of life he 
lives. The immortality which Christ announced, and which 
He brought to light, and which the gospel sets before us as an 
object of desire, and commands us to make earnest endeavors 
to attain it, is an eternally holy and blissful condition of the 
soul raised to life out of its death in trespasses and sins, and 
confirmed forever in the favor and love of God in heaven. 



170 The Resurrection of Jesus Christ [Serm. xvru. 

Such a blissful condition of the soul is its immortality. Noth- 
ing else is true immortality in the New Testament sense of the 
term ; as nothing is left in the true sense of the term but the 
union of the soul with God and his love and favor. 

It is to a hope of this immortality that the Apostle says be- 
lievers are begotten again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
from the dead. The lower immortality is never held up to 
men as an object of hope. The higher sense is always involved 
wherever the sacred writers speak of immortality. The verse 
following our text shows that this was what Peter had in mind 
as the object of the believer's hope : " Blessed be the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abun- 
dant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance 
incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved 
in heaven for you." The second clause is explanatory of the 
first. The hope to which those to whom he was writing had 
been begotten again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead, reaches forward to this pure and incorruptible in- 
heritance in heaven. They are begotten to it again, as to 
something they once had, but which they had lost. They had 
it, as did all men, in the unfallen state of the race ; but in the 
fall all was lost. To a hope of this lost inheritance the be- 
liever is begotten again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
from the dead. 

Let us look at the connection of thought here announced. 
What is the connection between the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ and the existence of this hope in his disciples ? 

1. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a perfect demonstra- 
tion that all which Christ claimed for his mission was true ; and 
a demonstration of the efficacy of his work to secure salvation for 
sinners. Christ claimed to have come to this world on a mis- 
sion from God. God sent Him as his messenger. He claimed 
also that He came into this world to make the salvation of sin- 
ners possible. He pointed to his death and said, that, in dying 
He should become a ransom for sinners, and that through the 
shedding of his blood remission of sins would be secured for 
the penitent. These were the claims that Jesus Christ made 
while He was among men in the flesh. His character and 
works gave abundant evidence that his claims were true. No 



l Pet. i. 3.] the Ground of Hope. 171 

man could look at his character, and reconcile that character 
with the supposition either that Jesus Christ was mistaken in 
his view of his own mission, or that He was an impostor. But 
there were multitudes of men then living, as there are multi- 
tudes of men living now, whose moral feelings were too low, 
and their moral perceptions too dull, to see and appreciate the 
harmony and glory of Christ's character. They were, there- 
fore, to some extent at least, insensible to the impression which 
that character ought to make on all minds, aud which it does 
make on all pure and elevated minds. For them, and also to 
some extent for all others, the miracles of Christ were neces- 
sary as proofs of his divine mission. They came in as proofs. 
Christ claimed that they were proofs. The leading minds, as 
well as the common minds of the nation acknowledged that 
they were proofs that Jesus of Nazareth was a teacher come 
from God. 

But He was put to death. This fact threw much of the past 
of his history into doubt and uncertainty to the minds of those 
who, up to this point, had been well assured regarding Him. 
They had, many of them, taken Him for the promised Mes- 
siah. Their conviction that He was the Messiah was as firm 
as their conviction that He came from God. Indeed, the two 
were blended together, and upheld each other. If one was 
false they knew not what to make of the other. If He was 
not the Messiah, then not only were they in the dark regarding 
his true character, but his own claim that He was the Messiah 
was false. What then could they think of his claim to be a 
divine messenger ? The divinity of his mission and the effi- 
cacy of his work as the Saviour of sinners, were indissolubly 
united. Something more was needed than even his character 
and miracles, to set the minds of his disciples at rest, after his 
death. These had been all-sufficient up to the moment of the 
crucifixion. From that moment they were obscured. The 
force of their testimony remained. This could not be invali- 
dated. But something was needed that should connect them 
with the new scene into which the death of Jesus had brought 
the disciples ; something that should connect the past and the 
present which had been secured by the crucifixion. In other 
words, his death had ended all the testimony of his life and 
character, which, but for his death, would have been all that 



172 The Resurrection of Jesus Christ [Serm. xviii. 

their minds required. But now there was needed a testimony 
that should remove the cloud that death had brought over the 
testimony already given, and in removing that cloud should so 
supplement what had been given before, that no room should 
be left for doubt. This testimony was given by the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ from the dead. When his disciples knew 
that He had risen, then all the past was assured to them anew, 
and the testimony to the divinity of their Master's mission was 
carried through the grave, linking the life that was before death 
with a life after death, and leaving nothing more to be desired, 
so strong, so cumulative, so clear, that nothing could ever shake 
their confidence in it. 

The same testimony which was made thus perfect and satis- 
factory regarding the divinity of his mission, established also 
the fact that the work which He claimed to do for the salvation 
of sinners was done effectually. His death was penal. It was 
endured, so He claimed, and so the gospel fully asserts, in be- 
half of sinners. In dying He bore their sins, and suffered their 
penalty. In this way alone could their sins be forgiven, and 
they be restored to the favor of God. His death became, 
therefore, in the light of his own teachings, as it was made by 
all the Scriptures, the great central fact in his mission. By his 
death He was to do the one great work of that mission. If 
his death was of the character that He claimed for it, then it 
was a satisfaction to divine justice for the sins of men, a pro- 
pitiation, an expiation. If it was not of this character, then 
all their hopes were gone. He was not " the Lamb of God 
that taketh away the sin of the world," and they had looked to 
Him in vain. He was not the propitiation for our sins, nor for 
the sins of the whole world, and they had hoped in Him in vain. 

As, therefore, the teachings of Christ needed the testimony 
of his miracles to demonstrate that they were divine ; so did 
his death need a great and unanswerable testimony to demon- 
strate that it was an expiation for sin. The resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead was this testimony. It was so 
counted by his disciples, and it is so claimed by all the writers 
of the New Testament. It was God's unequivocal acknowledg- 
ment and assertion of the efficacy of the death of Christ as a 
propitiation for human guilt. By raising Him from the dead, 
God not only indorsed as true every word that Jesus of Naz- 



l Pet. i. 3.] the Ground of Hope. 173 

areth taught, and every claim that He had made for Himself 
and his mission, but He proclaimed in tones that cannot be 
misunderstood nor denied, that the death of Jesus Christ re- 
moved every barrier that stood in the way of the forgiveness 
of sin, and the salvation and eternal life of the penitent sinner. 

It was thus that He begot believers in Jesus Christ again 
unto a living hope — even to a hope of an inheritance incor- 
ruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved for 
them in heaven. 

The Apostles always, therefore, exalted the resurrection of 
Christ and made it very prominent in their ministry. They 
preached " Christ crucified " as the real and only ground of a 
sinner's hope ; but they proclaimed the resurrection of Christ 
as the great and unanswerable demonstration that his death 
was a sure and all-sufficient ground of hope. The great argu- 
ment was, and it remains the great argument of the gospel 
still, that because Jesus Christ rose from the dead, therefore his 
death was a satisfaction to divine justice for those in whose be- 
half He died. It was the expiation for their sins. In his death 
He was accepted of God as their ransom ; and deliverance from 
the penalty of their sins, and their full forgiveness through his 
blood, was made possible for them. His resurrection was the 
divine and unmistakable announcement of this acceptance. 

2. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead begets 
and sustains hope in the minds of believers because it is a sat- 
isfying proof to them that He is exalted to headship over them 
and to universal dominion in their behalf. 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not simply a confirma- 
tion of the past in his teachings and claims, and of the efficacy 
of the work that He had already accomplished ; it was a pledge 
also of the future. It was a divine assurance that the claims 
which Christ had made for Himself and his kingdom in the 
future would prove to be true ; and that He would be, and 
would do, all that He had foretold, and all that the great end 
for which He died required in order to its full accomplishment. 
Because it was a resurrection from such a death, it was the en- 
tering on the work of carrying out the purpose of that death. 
In this purpose was the exaltation of Jesus Christ to supreme 
dominion that He might rule, head over all things to his 
Church. 



174 The Resurrection of Jesus Christ [Serm. xvni. 

But if Christ was thus exalted, how could those who be- 
lieved in Him fail of a living hope in Him regarding their own 
salvation ? If He had died to redeem them, and now reigned 
supreme over all things for the especial purpose of completing 
the object of his death, how could they be despondent ? They 
could not but hope. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was the 
divine assurance to their minds that He would by reigning for 
them bring every one of them off conquerors over every en- 
emy, and give them an inheritance among the sanctified. Thus 
Paul reasons : " If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
even so also those which sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
Him." Hence he declares : " If thou shalt confess with thy 
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God 
raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." 

This introduces us to a third thought, one intimately con- 
nected with this yet distinct from it. 

3. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead begets 
and sustains hope in the minds of believers because it is a sat- 
isfactory assurance of his immortality, and of the immortality 
of all who are in Him. That He rose from the dead was a 
proof, as we have seen, of the divinity of his mission, and of 
the efficacy of his death in making possible the salvation of 
penitent sinners ; it was a proof also of his immortality, — of 
his immortality in both the lower and higher sense of the word. 
It showed Him superior to death, in its physical sense, because 
He rose from physical death in direct confirmation of his own 
words that He had power to lay down his life, and that He 
had power to take it again. It showed that He had entered 
into life in the higher sense, the life of the soul, to remain 
in it forever ; because it was the clear declaration of God that 
his death had met and discharged the full penalty of the sin 
that He bore for his people, and under the weight of which He 
had sunk. When God raised Him from this death, which was 
suffered when He cried, " My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me?" it was God's testimony that Christ had ex- 
hausted all the power of sin, and that He could never again 
be brought under its power. His immortality was assured 
to his people, therefore, by his resurrection. But it was for his 
people — for all those who believe in Him — that He submitted 
to death. It was the penalty of their sins He suffered. They 



l Pet. i. 3.] the Ground of Hope. 175 

stood in Him before the law. They satisfied the law in Him. 
They rose in Him. They stood before the bar of divine jus- 
tice and were accepted in Him. His death was their death, 
his resurrection was their resurrection. He took them into 
Himself and triumphed for them. His triumph was their 
triumph. His immortality is therefore their immortality. 
This is his own representation of the case : " Because I live 
ye shall live also." 

No disciple who has learned his true relation to his Lord, 
and the real character of his Lord's death, can, therefore, fail 
of a living hope if he will consider rightly the power of his 
Lord's resurrection. 



SERMON XIX. 

NO CONDEMNATION TO BELIEVERS. 



Romans viii. 1 . — There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 

PT1HIS is a conclusion from the argument which the Apostle 
-*- had been urging in the preceding chapters. His great 
aim was to show that " the gospel of Christ is the power of 
God unto salvation to every one that belie veth ; " and that 
therefore " a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the 
law." In Christ Jesus every believer has died to the law. 
He has so answered its penal claims that Christ has become 
the end or fulfillment of the law for righteousness to him. 
The necessary conclusion is, " There is therefore now no con- 
demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." I invite your 
attention to some of the reasons upon which this conclusion 
rests. To open the way for the better understanding of these 
reasons, I will make two negative remarks showing what are 
not reasons why there is no condemnation to them that are 
in Christ Jesus. 

1. It is not because they do not sin. Christians do sin. 
None feel this more keenly than they do themselves. In all 
their being they are thoroughly conscious of it ; and every one 
of them will admit most fully and unhesitatingly that the 
Scriptures are true in reference to himself at least, when they 
declare, " If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and 
the truth is not in us." So far was the Apostle from making 
the conclusion found in our text rest upon such a basis, that, 
on the contrary, it was put in its present place as a special 
support and comfort to such as are most painfully conscious of 
sin ; not only of sin in their outward acts, but of sin dwell- 
ing within them, and constantly making its presence and 
its power felt to their apprehension. The latter part of the 



Rom. viii. L] JVo Condemnation to Believers. 177 

seventh chapter is a graphic description of this painful con- 
sciousness in the very persons in whose favor he draws the 
conclusion with which he begins the eighth chapter. In the 
seventh chapter he gives his own experience as to sinfulness 
and sinning. But he does not give it as an apostolic experience, 
nor as one peculiar to himself. He gives it as the common 
experience of true believers. He writes for them all, and his 
words are, and have ever been, the spontaneous utterances of 
all Christian souls, when he says, " What I would, that do I not ; 
but what I hate, that do I." u For to will is present with me , 
but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the 
good that I would, I do not : but the evil which I would not, 
that 1 do." " I find then a law in my members, that when I 
would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the 
law of God after the inward man : but I see another law in my 
members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 
into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh 
wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body 
of this death ? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God ; but 
with the flesh the law of sin." Immediately upon uttering this 
the Apostle brings in the declaration of our text. With a 
" therefore " that takes hi this very experience, while it goes 
back to the beginning and includes all his argument, he assures 
all those who are tried with indwelling and outworking sin, as 
he himself was, " There is now, — even while we have this pain- 
ful consciousness, and while we are engaged in this, at times, 
almost hopeless struggle, — there is now no condemnation to us 
who are in Christ Jesus, who — being in Him, and because we 
are in Him — walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." 
For this, I remark in passing, is the exact force of the last clause 
of our text. It is thrown in, not as one of the conditions upon 
which exemption from condemnation is secure, but to indicate 
an unvarying characteristic of all who are in Christ Jesus. It is 
as true of all such, that they walk not after the flesh but after 
the Spirit, as it is that they are not under condemnation. 1 

The experience of Paul is reflected in that of all the Old and 
New Testament saints who have spoken to us on this subject. 

1 The best authorities reject this last clause as an interpolation. Yet it is true 
and Scriptural. 

12 



178 No Condemnation to Believers. [Serm. xtx. 

At the time when the Psalmist David showed the greatest faith 
in God, saying, " In thee, O Lord, do I hope : forsake me not O 
Lord : O my God be not far from me : make haste to help me, 
O Lord, my salvation," — when thus expressing his piety, and 
his faith, he cries out, " There is no rest in my bones, because 
of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone over my head : as a 
heavy burden they are too heavy" for me." This painful con- 
sciousness of sin eating like a canker into his soul, and poisoning 
the atmosphere he breathed, comes out frequently through the 
Psalms. It is especially prominent too in the Prophets. It 
pervades the writings of all the Apostles. No ; it is not because 
those in Christ Jesus are sinless that there is no condemna- 
tion to them. If sinlessness be the ground of exemption, then 
none of the sacred writers can be counted among the saved. 

2. It is not because God does not abhor and condemn the sin 
that is in them, and committed by them, as much as He does 
the sins of others, that there is no condemnation to them that 
are in Christ Jesus. 

Sin itself is displeasing to God, whoever the sinner may be. 
In whomsoever found, it is " that abominable thing that God 
hates." There is sometimes cherished a sentiment directly op- 
posite to this ; namely, that sin is a matter of small moment in 
the estimation of the Almighty, when it is found in one of his 
own children, as compared with what it is when found in 
others. Not unfrequently the very fact that true believers are 
exempt for condemnation, and that God does not visit their sin 
with avenging punishment, but pardons them for the sake of 
the Redeemer, is so stated, or the statement itself, though truly 
and scripturally made, is so misapprehended, or perverted, 
that this sentiment seems to be taught. Persons who preach 
faithfully the exact doctrine of the text, are thus, oftentimes, 
said to preach that the sins of believers are not as offensive in 
the sight of God as the sins of unbelievers are. But the 
dealings of God with his people have always taught a different 
lesson. " His wrath is revealed from heaven against all un- 
godliness, and unrighteousness of men," whether in believers or 
others. " He is of purer eyes than to behold evil ; and cannot 
look on iniquity." Besides He has never spared his children 
when they have clung to their sin ; but has visited them 
with the rod of his anger. How often did He explain to his 



Rom. viii. l.] No Condemnation to Believers. 179 

people of old the reasons for their sufferings, when they came 
into trouble, by pointing them to the fact, that their sins had 
separated them from Him. And in the New Testament the 
same determination is apparent to have no fellowship with 
believers in their sins. u Remember from whence thou art 
fallen," said the Redeemer to the church at Ephesus, " and re- 
pent and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee 
quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, 
except thou repent." This He said to them, notwithstanding 
that He had first commended them for their " works and 
labor and patience, and their intolerance of them which were 
evil ; " and that they had borne, and had patience, and for his 
name's sake had labored, and had not fainted. It was the 
same with the other churches in Asia, however much there 
was in any of them to be commended by the Lord, yet 
wherever any sin was found unrepented of, his anger burned 
towards it. It was the sin of the Laodiceans that called from 
Him that most withering rebuke which showed so clearly his 
utter abhorrence of sin when it is cherished by his people. If 
it was still clung to He would spurn them from Him as a 
nauseous draught is cast from the mouth. No ; sin in the 
people of God is not less hateful in his sight than is sin in 
others. Nay ; is it not more offensive ? The nearer perfect 
anything is, the more glaring and offensive a blemish, — oath 
from a lady as compared with one from a man. Sin itself is ab- 
horrent to his whole being, and his whole being, as his throne, 
is in deadly and eternal hostility to it. If He cannot separate 
his people from their sins, He will separate them from Himself. 
Because He is holy He must do this. If He could connive 
at sin He Himself would become unholy. 

But there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus, because — 

1. He, in his own person, has so answered for all their sins 
that a full and unreserved pardon has been vouchsafed to them 
for his sake. This has taken them out from under condemna- 
tion. Christ Himself has so suffered and obeyed in their stead, 
that out of respect to what He has done they have been re- 
leased from all the condemnation that their transgressions of 
the law of God had brought upon them. 

This truth is set forth very strongly by the inspired writers. 



180 No Condemnation to Believers. [Sbrm. xix. 

They do not, indeed, encourage the idea which some men have 
attempted to support from their language, that believers were 
so in Christ that they absolutely and literally were punished in 
Him ; and in his death suffered literally all the penalty of their 
sins. This view of salvation destroys the possibility of pardon. 
If you have literally and absolutely suffered the entire penalty 
of your sins, because of your oneness with Christ, then you need 
no pardon. Deliverance from all the penalty of sin is your right, 
and you can claim it at the bar of infinite justice. There is 
then no grace in the matter of your salvation. Salvation is by 
the law itself. But though the sacred writers do not teach such 
a sentiment, yet their language carries the idea that Christ, in 
his obedience and suffering, is the substitute of his people, so 
far, that out of respect to what He has done and suffered, the 
grace of God can reach every one of them in pardon, and in 
the renewing and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. 
The language which they use in conveying this idea is so 
strong and so emphatic that we cannot overstate the Scrip- 
tural doctrine of the substitution of Christ, — that is, his suffer- 
ing in his people's stead, — if we leave any room whatever for 
pardon and grace to reach them. If we stop short of making 
the sufferings and obedience of Christ so literally those of his 
people that all distinction between Him and them is lost sight 
of, and they have therefore a claim in their own right on the 
justice of God, because of what He has done, or rather, what 
they can do in Him, — if we stop short of this, and leave any 
room whatever for all of our salvation to be of grace and 
through pardon, — then we cannot, I say, press the idea of sub- 
stitution too far. " He bore our sins." " He was made a curse 
for us." " The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquities of us all." 
" With his stripes we are healed." " The chastisement of our 
peace was upon Him." " Brethren, ye are become dead to the 
law by the body of Christ." " He who has no sin was made 
sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
Him." And, not to multiply passages further, " Christ hath 
become the end of the law for righteousness to every one that 
believeth." 

These are strong words. There is no holding back in them. 
They teach unhesitatingly and unequivocally that Christ was 
in his sufferings the substitute of his people ; and that He so 



Rom. viii. l.] No Condemnation to Believers, 181 

answered for their sins that they are, on account of his suffer- 
ings, delivered from all punishment. But these passages must 
never be separated from others that define the nature of the 
salvation which He wrought out for his people. It is true " we 
have redemption through his blood," but that redemption con- 
sists in " the forgiveness of sins ; " and if in forgiveness, then not 
in our having so suffered in our substitute that we have created 
for ourselves a claim on infinite justice to be delivered from the 
penalty of our sins. It is true that " the blood of Jesus Christ 
the Son of God cleanseth from all sin ; " but it is only so far as 
to leave it true that " if we confess our sins, God is faithful 
and just to forgive us our sins," and thus in conjunction with 
forgiveness, " to cleanse us from all iniquity." 

There is very little danger, however, I apprehend, of our press- 
ing the fact of substitution too far. Our danger lies mostly in 
the opposite direction. We too often come so far short of ap- 
prehending the great truth that Christ died for our sins, that 
we have no foundation left to stand upon when we feel our- 
selves to be sinking under the burden of our guilt. We are, in 
other words, more in danger of attempting a legal salvation by 
ourselves than of carrying the idea of substitution so far as to 
make salvation legal in Christ. 

2. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus, because He is a continual substitute for them. As they 
were first delivered from condemnation because He so suffered 
in their behalf that pardon could reach them, so He is now so 
far their surety and substitute before the bar of God that his 
interposition saves them from coming again under condemna- 
tion. 

This idea, too, is boldly and unequivocally set forth and dwelt 
upon by the sacred writers. They teach us that the moment 
we come to be in Christ, by the exercise of a living faith in 
Him, we come into a new relation to God. We are then no 
longer under the law, — as a condemning power, — but under 
grace. Christ remains what He then became, " the end of the 
law for righteousness " to us. We become so far his that He 
counts us his own body. He, as the head and representative 
of all, ever lives to make intercession for us. And if any of us 
sin He is our advocate with the Father. Believers stand, 
therefore, not in the relation of those amenable to the law and 



182 No Condemnation to Believers. [Berm. xix. 

bound to answer its penal claims in their own persons, but as 
amenable directly to Christ, whose they have become by the 
purchase of his blood. He Himself answers for them to the 
divine law. By their faith they have committed to Him all 
their responsibilities to the law, as a condemning power. This 
is the meaning of all those passages that speak of his "mak- 
ing intercession for us " — his being " our advocate " — of our 
being " in Him " — and his being " our life." 

This is what Paul teaches us in that memorable passage in 
the eighth of Romans, where he asks, " What shall we then 
say to these things ? If God be for us, who can be against us ? 
He that spared not his own Son but delivered Him up for us 
all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ? 
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ? It is 
God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ 
that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the 
right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." 

The fact that believers are in Christ, or that they are be- 
lievers, implies that they are continual penitents, and that they 
are sincere lovers of holiness, and that they cannot be in love 
with sin. For " if any man be in Christ he is a new crea- 
ture ; " his heart has been changed, and remains changed. 
The new creation of God in Christ Jesus is " unto good works ; " 
and those who are new-created will never fail to aim at the 
doing of them. They that are in Christ Jesus are dead to sin, 
and therefore they cannot live any longer therein. This state 
of mind is as abiding in them as is the intercession of Christ in 
their behalf for their outward salvation. It is therefore always 
as proper — so far as pertains to their characters and dispo- 
sitions — to continue them in a state of justification as it was 
to bring them into it at first. God does not, by keeping them 
in this state, encourage those who cherish sin in their hearts, 
and are enemies of his law. The presence in the soul of love 
to sin, and enmity to holiness, shows that there is no faith in 
the Redeemer in that soul ; and if no faith in Him, then there 
is no union with Him, and the soul is not in Him ; it is there- 
fore yet under condemnation. But because the soul that is in 
Christ is in a state of allegiance to God, and cannot love sin, 
but must and will ever delight in holiness, and in the law of 
God, therefore there is a fitness that, if any of them sin, they 



Rom. viii. 1.] No Condemnation to Believers, 183 

should have an eternal advocate with the Father ; and that He 
should continually answer in his own person all the claims of 
the law against them as transgressors. Thus it is true of them 
every moment, even when they most keenly feel the power of 
their sins, that there is now no condemnation to them that are 
in Christ Jesus. He has become, and now is, the end — the 
fulfillment — of the law for righteousness to them. And it is 
their privilege, when they become conscious of sin, to betake 
themselves at once, and with full assurance of faith, to the ad- 
vocacy and the saving favor of the Lord Jesus Christ. They 
are not in the relation of criminals awaiting the infliction of 
penalty, but in the relation of children who have offended their 
father, indeed ; and He may chasten them on account of it ; 
but He will not put them among those whose hearts are at en- 
mity with Him, and who have not become his servants in Christ 
Jesus. In the light of this subject we see — 

1. The error of supposing that God does not receive a sinner 
into his favor until the sinner can feel that he is perfectly holy. 
This is a common error with very many who have been awak- 
ened to a sense of their sin and danger, and are asking what 
the} 7 shall do to be saved. This is the reason why they strive 
to obtain the favor of God by reforms of known sin, and by 
desperate resolutions. They are going about thus to establish 
their own righteousness as a ground of acceptance with God, 
and rejecting the righteousness which He has provided. He 
calls them to faith in One who has borne their sins for them, 
and not to self -righteousness. He calls them to avail them- 
selves, by faith in the Redeemer, of the provisions of salvation 
which He has made in that Redeemer, and not to the vain at- 
tempt of answering the claims of a violated law by their own 
weak doings or trivial sufferings. He calls them to fall into 
the hands of the Redeemer as sinners, to be pardoned for his 
sake, and not to the hopeless task of making expiation in their 
own persons. 

2. The error of supposing that God counts his people his 
enemies, and puts them again under condemnation, and makes 
them liable to penalty, when they fall into sin. 

This is the first error extended to greater lengths, and rests on 
the same notion that a sinner's own righteousness is the ground 
of his acceptance with God, and that, therefore, one who has 



184 No Condemnation to Believers. [Serm. xix. 

sinned must first atone for his sin by his own righteousness, be- 
fore he can be restored to the favor of God. On the contrary, 
whenever a Christian is conscious of sin, and feels his soul bur- 
dened because of it, his privilege is to fly at once to the inter- 
cession of Christ, and to take refuge in his advocacy. 

Hence it is that our Saviour, in teaching his disciples how to 
pray, directs them to say, not " Thou just and holy Ruler of 
men," but " Our Father." This designation governs all that 
follows. Hence when we say, " Forgive us our trespasses," the 
petition is not to God simply as a lawgiver and executor, and it 
is not to be offered in the spirit of one under condemnation, and 
appointed to suffer the avenging penalty of a righteous law, but 
it is to be offered in the spirit of a child, that has erred from 
the right way, while yet his heart has remained true to his 
father's person and government. And the forgiveness which 
is granted in answer to that prayer is not the forgiveness of 
a mere lawgiver, but of a tender father. 

3. There is no such thing as punishment ever inflicted on 
one who is in Christ Jesus. Punishment, in the strict sense 
of the term punishment, is the infliction of penalty for violated 
law. This none who are in Christ Jesus ever suffer. They are 
pardoned. 

" As many as I love I rebuke and chasten," says the Saviour ; 
but He never visits them with penalty ; He has become the 
end of the law, etc. ; and if the law is fulfilled for them, then 
no punishment. They are thus ' not under law, but under 
grace. 



SERMON XX. 

THE TRIAL OF FAITH. 



1 Peter i. 6, 7. — Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold 
temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that 
perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory 
at the appearing of Jesus Christ. 

LET us consider the manner in which faith is tried. Ac- 
cording to the words before us, it is by " temptations : " 
" Ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the 
trial of your faith may be found unto praise and honor and 
glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." 

There is some ambiguity in the use of the words " tempta- 
tion " and " trial." " Temptation " really means " trial," 
though there is something of evil intent implied in the former 
that is not implied in the latter. To u tempt " a man is to 
" try " him.. If, for example, you offer a man a bribe to 
tempt him to be dishonest, you try his honesty. If you offer 
a total abstinence man liquor to tempt him to violate his 
pledge, you put his principles upon trial. 

The word that exactly expresses the idea of the Apostle is 
" proof." The word " temptations " indicates the trials to 
which those whom he was addressing were exposed ; and the 
word " trial " points out the favorable result of this exposure ; 
the proof of genuineness which the trials furnish ; and the 
making of that which was proved more pure if there was in it 
any mixture of evil. For illustration, if the man to whom a 
bribe is offered to tempt his honesty, firmly refuses to receive 
it, then the temptation or trial of his honesty has proved it to 
be real and not assumed ; and if there was any element of 
selfishness that was weakening this trait of his character, the 
trial that has proved it has purified his honesty and made it 
stronger. If the total abstinence man refuses the offer that 
tempts or tries his principles, the trial proves his principles to 



186 The Trial of Faith. [Serm. xx. 

be what he professes them to be, and by calling them into vig- 
orous and decided action against their opposites, has made them 
stronger and purer. 

Anything, therefore, that tries or tests that which we call 
our faith is a " temptation." And if that which we call our 
faith endures the trial, and is not overcome by it, the trial 
proves it to be faith indeed, — and by bringing it into ex- 
ercise, strengthens and purifies it. 

It is this proof of our faith which the Apostle says is " much 
more precious than that of gold that perisheth, though it be 
proved with fire;" and it is this proved faith that will "be 
found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of 
Jesus Christ." 

The purpose, then, for which God permits his people to come 
into trials or temptations, is, according to the text, to prove 
that which they take to be their faith, that it may be seen 
whether or not it is genuine ; and at the same time, if it is 
genuine, to separate from it every impurity by which it is al- 
loyed. 

The reasons why faith is selected as the grace to be espe- 
cially tried, are doubtless to be found first in the fact that it is 
the characteristic and most observable grace of the Christian 
character and then that faith is the central point of Christian 
character. Every other element is involved in that alone, so 
that by the terms of salvation, which the gospel proposes to 
men, everything is made to hinge on the possession and exer- 
cise of this single grace. Hence, in the phraseology of the 
New Testament, to be a Christian is to be a believer ; or to be 
" in the faith." If one has faith in the Son of God, he be- 
longs to Christ, and is numbered among his people. If he has 
not faith in the Son of God, he is not a Christian, and he has 
no inheritance among them that are. He is known and clas- 
sified by this trait alone. If, therefore, a man's faith is tried, 
his whole character is tried. If his faith endures the trial, and 
so is proved by it, his whole character is proved, and his whole 
character will " be found unto praise and honor and glory at 
the appearing of Jesus Christ." To a believer every temptation 
or trial is, in some measure, a testing and a proving of his faith. 
This will be evident if we reflect for a moment on what it is 
that makes anything a trial to a Christian's mind. ' 



l Pet. i. 6, 7.] The Trial of Faith. 187 

1. In the first place, things are trials to us because they are 
contrary to our desires. If things are in accordance with our 
desires they are not trials. They become trials only by being 
contrary to us, and thwarting the purposes of our hearts. The 
providences of God, his dealings with us and ours, or with those 
towards whom our feelings are enlisted, are not in themselves 
alone considered pleasing to us. God does not deal with us in 
such a way as we should if we were left wholly to our own de- 
sires with Him, and hence we feel tried and are afflicted. 

This element enters into every trial of a Christian's mind, 
from the least to the greatest. In many trials it is not so 
prominent to our apprehension as other elements, simply be- 
cause it is overshadowed by these, but in by far the greater 
number of our trials this simple crossing of our desires is the 
element of trial. It reaches no higher. The thing that God 
has seen fit to order or permit in our circumstances or condi- 
tion or relations or interests, is something different from what 
we, if left to our own selves, should have chosen. 

Now notice how such a matter goes at once to a Christian's 
faith and puts it to the test, and, if it is genuine, calls it into 
vigorous exercise. His faith is trust in God, By his faith he 
has confided all his interests into the hands of Christ; nothing 
is kept back. According to his belief Christ is not only inter- 
ested in all that pertains to him, — for this is Christ's teaching, 
— but is infinitely well-disposed towards him and sure to do 
for him, and by him, that which is for his highest good. This 
is the view that faith takes of the Lord, and of his dealings 
with those who trust Him. 

But that which is a trial to us by crossing our desires tempts 
us to call the goodness of God into question ; just as a little 
child distrusts the goodness and love of a parent when the par- 
ent crosses his wishes. We cannot understand how the good- 
ness of God can be consistent with such thwarting of our 
desires, and checking of our pleasures. If our doubt and ques- 
tioning were put into language in naked form, without any 
evasive palliation in the statement, it would be " Can God be 
good in thus crossing my wishes, and thwarting the purposes 
of my heart ? " There is thus inaugurated a contest between 
trust and distrust within the soul. The question to be decided 
is, whether God or self shall have dominion over the desires. 



188 The Trial of Faith [Serm. xx. 

Shall we walk by sight, still holding to our own preconceived 
views of what is best in our circumstances ; or, shall we aban- 
don these things as not best because God has not chosen them, 
and walk by faith, taking as best that which God has ordered, 
simply and solely because He has ordered it ? Faith will do 
the latter. If it is strong and healthful it will do it promptly 
and cheerfully ; if it is weak, it will do it, but not without a 
severe struggle and great pain. It is the mark of one who has 
passed beyond the childhood of faith into the fullness of the 
stature of a man in Christ Jesus, to say in sincerity, " Though 
He slay me, yet will I trust Him," and heartily accept the in- 
spired assertion that " all things work together for good to 
them that love God." The novice, who is yet a babe in Christ, 
must take many lessons in the school of Christian experience, 
and exercise himself in many a struggle against unbelief, and 
against self-conceit, before he will bring all the events and cir- 
cumstances of his life to the judgment of faith rather than of 
his own reason ; to the supremacy of his Lord rather than to 
his own cherished self-sufficiency. The temptations to which 
he is exposed, the trials he is called upon to endure, teach him 
these lessons and give him this invigorating and purifying ex- 
ercise. This was the peculiar element in the temptation, of our 
Saviour, when Satan said, " Command these stones to be made 
bread." This is the element of trial in all those temptations, 
which you have to complain of in the condition in which Provi- 
dence has cast your lot in life — (poor, — humble circum- 
stances, — not great and commanding abilities, — feeble consti- 
tution, — the ten thousand annoying things connected with 
your lot which none but yourself can fully know, — reverses, 
etc., etc.). 

2. Again, things are trials to us because they are contrary 
to what we deem wisest. God does not conform his dealings 
with us, nor with the world in which we live, to the dictates of 
our wisdom. Those events and those orderings of Providence 
which fall in with our own judgments, and which our own rea- 
sons pronounce wise, do not tempt us to question the wisdom 
of God. They do not try our faith in Him. To trust the wis- 
dom of God then, is hardly trust at all. Certainly it is not the 
trust of faith. Faith always endures as seeing Him who is in- 
visible, though it does not see Him. It is therefore a trusting 



l Pet. i. 6, 7.] The Trial of Faith. 189 

of God in the dark. It relies upon his wisdom both after the 
wisdom of his ways ceases to be seen by our reason, and when 
they appear to our own reason to be unwise. 

But when his ways clash with the dictates of our reason, or 
even when they pass into regions where our reason cannot fol- 
low them, then the trial begins. The question is at once 
started in our minds, which of the two, our way or God's way, 
is to be counted better, irrespective of anything in it that 
touches directly our own wishes or fancied interests. When 
the ways of God seem to our reason to be unwise, — not the 
best that could have been chosen, nor the best adapted to secure 
the end proposed, then if we should give full and uncolored ex- 
pression to our thoughts, we should find that just so far as there 
is a want or weakness of faith in us, there would be a declara- 
tion that God's ways are foolish and unbecoming, while those 
which we should have adopted, if the choice had been left with 
us, would have been patterns for the infinite Himself to adopt 
and follow out. " The foolishness of man thus perverteth his 
way : and his heart fretteth against the Lord." 

All unbelief has in it this exaltation of its own wisdom above 
God's. It is the very nature of unbelief to make the wisdom 
of God foolishness whenever that wisdom is not in accordance 
with its own. When our first mother tasted the forbidden fruit 
she brought herself to the fatal deed by a series of artful rea- 
sonings against the wisdom of God, and in favor of her own : 
" She saw the tree that it was good for food." This was its 
first recommendation. Could it be wise or well that God had 
forbidden so good a thing to be eaten ? Then, still looking, it 
became " pleasant to her eyes." Oh, why should it be forbid- 
den. Certainly it is better that a thing so inviting should be 
enjoyed. Reason itself shows that an object appealing so 
strongly to my desires was intended for them, and ought not to 
be denied to them. Then, and more than all the rest, u it was 
a tree to be desired to make one wise ! " This completed the 
argument. By this time the wisdom of God had fallen very 
low in her estimation : her own had risen very high. She 
therefore hesitated no longer. God's wisdom was set aside 
and her own preferred in its place. Her faith was tried and it 
failed. 

Some such process of argumentation is often resorted to by 



190 The Trial of Faith. [Serm. xx. 

us, when his ways do not commend themselves to our wisdom. 
We sometimes yield to the trial, and follow for a season in the 
way of our own judgments. At other times we hesitate and 
struggle against the temptation, and, in the end, come off vic- 
tors, becoming willing to count our own wisdom folly, and to 
walk in the ways of God and to trust in them, even when they 
seem to lead towards failure and disappointment. Abraham 
thus walked when he went with Isaac to the mount of sacrifice. 
When his faith had carried him above the conflict which began 
between his own desires towards Isaac and what God had com- 
manded, and he had enough of confidence left in the Almighty 
to believe that He would in some way make his promise re- 
garding Isaac good, then every step of the way God led him 
was one that would tempt him to question the wisdom of God 
in the means He had chosen toward the accomplishment of the 
end. Every step was one that compelled Abraham to deny 
his own wisdom and trust in that of God, though he had noth- 
ing but the character of God to rest upon, — nothing whatever 
in his present doings. 

But after the struggle was ended, and his faith had tri- 
umphed over all the temptations that Abraham had found to 
let go his confidence, then his faith was proved. It was found 
to be genuine, and the power of unbelief was permanently les- 
sened in his soul. This element must have entered largely into 
the trials of mind endured by the disciples after the crucifixion 
of our Lord. 

Who of us has not been through similar experience, if we 
are the disciples of Christ ? Similar, I mean, so far as the ex- 
ercises of our minds are concerned, and the principles that were 
involved. There is hardly a distinctive doctrine of the gospel, 
e. g., or a dark and mysterious Providence which has not thus 
tried our faith and brought us distinctly to the issue whether 
we will condemn as folly the wisdom of God or our own. 

This was the essence of that temptation of our Redeemer 
when Satan brought Him to Jerusalem and set Him on a pin- 
acle of the temple, and said unto Him, "If thou be the Son of 
God cast thyself down from hence : for it is written He shall 
give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee, and in their 
hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy 
foot against a stone." Human wisdom had long before die- 



l Pet. i. 6, 7.] The Trial of Faith. 191 

tated that the Messiah should manifest Himself in some scene 
of sudden and wonderful splendor to the people, and claim their 
homage. To have complied with the suggestion of the adver- 
sary would have met the demands of this wisdom. God had, 
however, appointed a way in all respects opposed to this — a 
way of deep and long continued humiliation, — and faith in 
God would abide in this way against the wisdom of the wisest 
men of the world. 

3. Again, things are trials to us because they are contrary 
to our views of what is right. If a thing is contrary to our 
wishes, and against the dictates of our wisdom, yet if it is seen 
to be right, this goes very far towards the removal of the other 
elements of trial. We more easily learn then to question and 
deny our own wisdom, and to bring our wishes into harmony 
with the thing that is thus seen. But if the ways of God 
clash with our views of right and justice, then we are tried 
indeed. There is no trial to a righteous soul like this. 

But God has chosen, and still chooses, sometimes to manifest 
Himself in this manner to his children. Rather let us say that 
oftentimes his ways, in our imperfect apprehension of them, 
are contrary to our sense of right. The history of this world 
abounds with such manifestations. The relations which men 
sustain to God, by virtue of their being members of the human 
family, rest under this dark cloud. Some of the grandest and 
sweetest doctrines of the gospel rest under it, to the view of 
multitudes of even Christian minds. Starting with the doc- 
trine of divine sovereignty, and sweeping down through all its 
implications from election, foreordination, gracious salvation, 
and eternal retribution, there is not a single step of revelation 
that does not serve as a severe trial to all thoughtful minds, 
until they have ceased to live upon the food of babes in Christ, 
and fed long upon the strong meat of eternal truth. So, too, 
starting with the first recorded providence of God towards our 
fallen race, in their expulsion from Paradise, and coming down 
the track of his providential dealings to the present hour, there 
is no period that does not exhibit the ways of God with his 
creatures under this cloud. How can this be in the government 
of a righteous God ? is the mild and timid expression of a sterner 
and more daring thought that is lurking in the mind, and which, 
fully expressed, would be, " The way of the Lord is not equal ; 



192 The Trial of Faith. [Sbkm. xx. 

his judgments are not right." Things of this kind enter largely 
into and form much of the web of human history. Wars, op- 
pressions, tyrannies, the innocent made the prey of the guilty, 
the innocent suffering with the guilty, and on account of their 
misdeeds, falsehood triumphing over truth, vice over virtue, 
cruelty over mercy, the strong over the weak, the wicked, and 
they that are banded together for evil against righteousness, 
over the good and them that contend in a righteous cause. 

Now look again and see how directly all these things go to 
try our faith. Faith in a righteous God is the very thing that 
is appealed to. All that class of trials to which we have al- 
luded throw us at once into the necessity of deciding whether 
God is or is not to be trusted as righteous ! To one who be- 
lieves in Christ none of these things are independent of Him. 
For his own word is unequivocal that all power in heaven and 
in earth is in his hands. We cannot hide ourselves in any of 
those atheistic sentiments that exclude God from human affairs, 
and say that He is not ruling in them, and working out his 
highest purposes' by them. We are compelled to admit his 
power and his purpose into all these dark things ; and then to 
make our choice whether still to confide in Him as righteous 
and faithful, or to turn from Him. 

Here begins the struggle of faith. This is the hardest work 
of all it is ever required to do. To rest quiet, and maintain 
our trust, when God seems to uphold at least, if He does not 
do wrong ! Oh, it is hard to believe in the righteousness of 
God when we can see nothing but apparent unrighteousness in 
his ways. 

But if there is faith it will rise up to the demand made upon 
it, and this test will search us through and through to find 
faith if it is in us. It may not rise up to the demand at once ; 
but ultimately it will. For "this is the victory that over- 
cometh the world, even your faith." Before the contest with 
unbelief is ended, faith will say with triumph in its tones : 
" Be still and know that Jehovah is God." It will rebuke the 
dark suggestions of unbelief with the inquiry, Who art thou 
that repliest against God ? Shall not the Judge of all the 
earth do right ? It will plead the cause of God with a self- 
denying humility, that honors God above itself, saying, His 
ways, it is true, are in the deep waters where I cannot trace 



l pet. i. 6, 7.] The Trial of Faith. 193 

them ; they are in the thick clouds, and I cannot behold them. 
He hideth Himself, so that I cannot find Him. " Clouds and 
darkness are round about Him," yet I know that " righteous- 
ness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." My 
feeble powers cannot comprehend the Infinite One ; my line 
cannot fathom the depths of his wisdom, nor measure the 
greatness of his purposes. I cannot even indicate his ways for 
Him. He is his own interpreter, and He will make them 
plain. 

As it appears to my mind, the temptation of our Redeemer 
was of this kind, in a measure at least, when the tempter 
" showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
them ; and said unto Him, All these things will I give thee, if 
thou wilt fall down and worship me." Our Lord was in hu- 
miliation, deep and distressing : He was oppressed with the 
most pinching poverty : He was in disgrace and contempt. 
Yet He was conscious, in Himself, that honor, and glory, and 
riches, and power, and dominion, belonged to Him. In the 
providence of God, and by his ordering, He was kept out of his 
inheritance. Could this be right ? Was it just that He should 
thus remain an outcast and an underling in his own domin- 
ions ? Would it not be better and would He not be justified, 
to take his rights in the way that seemed open now for Him to 
secure them, rather than longer wait the slow and perhaps un- 
certain unfoldings and interpositions of the Father, who seemed 
to have hidden his face, and abandoned his Son to the miser- 
ies of his condition ? The same trial seems to have come upon 
Him again, in another form, when that cry of bitter agony was 
wrung from Him on the cross, " My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me ? " To some extent in the garden when He 
cried, " Let this cup pass from me." It was faith rising against 
the temptation when He added, " Nevertheless, not my will 
but thine be done." Very many of the trials of the people of 
God are of this character. Even the providence of God seems 
to be enlisted on the side of wrong and injustice. Nothing but 
a faith that rises above all that is seen and temporal, into the 
purer regions of the unseen and eternal, and rests itself in a 
God whom it cannot see, will give us the victory in such cir- 
cumstances. There must be a falling back upon the Word of 
God, and upon the great principles of his government, so far as 

13 



194 The Trial of Faith. [Skrm. xx. 

his government has wrought itself out to our comprehension 
and history. The grounds upon which we stand, and the ends 
which we seek to attain, will be, and ought to be, more care- 
fully scrutinized, that we may the more fully assure ourselves 
that they are indeed right ; and then there must be the patient 
waiting, the calm and heroic endurance, the faithful and earnest 
and persistent endeavors, that are inspired by an unshaken con- 
fidence in the rightness of right, and in its certain triumph be- 
cause God the Omnipotent is righteous. 

When our faith has been brought up to this high standard, 
but not before, it gives us the complete victory over the world. 
It is then proved. It is found to be a faith that will make God 
God, that will put Him on the throne, over the heart, over the 
understanding, over the will, over all the desires and purposes 
of the soul, and over all the interests of creation. Thus it is 
shown to be, and has become, a faith that will introduce no dis- 
cord into heaven, but will forever join its glorified millions in 
ascribing " blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, 
and honor, and power, and might unto God for ever and ever." 
It is such a faith, and it is proved to be such, that it will keep 
him who exercises it in perfect peace and perfect obedience. 
It is thus found unto praise and honor and glory. God ap- 
proves it ; He puts honors upon it ; crowns it with the glory of 
heaven. 



SERMON XXI. 

THE SERVICE OF CHRIST NOT HARD. 



Matt. xi. 30. — My yoke is easy and my burden is light. 

THIS language is addressed to such as are under a yoke 
that is not easy, and are carrying a burden that is not 
light. In the service of another than Christ. their souls have 
become weary, and the exactions of their servitude are harder 
than they can bear. Christ says to such, Enter my service, 
become my followers, choose me as your master and teacher, 
submit to my authority, do my will. This, the yoke of my 
service, is easy ; this, the burden of my requirements, is light. 

Such, as we understand them, are the yoke and the burden 
of Christ. They are his service, and the duties which that ser- 
vice demands. To take his yoke upon us, as He here urges us 
to do, is to submit to his authority and consent to be governed 
by his will as his servants and followers. To bear his burden 
is to do and to suffer whatever He may require of us in this re- 
lationship of servants and followers. 

The doctrine of our text then is that Christ's service is not a 
hard one. He is not a hard master. He does not make hard 
demands, nor lay heavy burdens upon them that serve Him. 
" His yoke is easy and his burden is light." 

1. The terms easy and light are comparative. Our Saviour 
evidently puts his service and its duties in contrast with any 
and every service with its requirements, under which any whom 
He addressed might be laboring and heavy laden. 

To the formalist, toiling in the bondage of Pharisaic tradi- 
tions and staggering under its burden of ceremonies and unrea- 
sonable exactions ; " tithing his mint, anise, and cummin," ob- 
serving times and seasons with superstitious anxiety ; guarding 
with painful carefulness his person and his possessions from the 
touch of legal uncleanness ; groaning under the " yoke which 



196 The Service of Christ not hard. [Sekm. xxi. 

neither his fathers nor himself was able to bear ; " to him our 
Lord said, in the words before us, " in comparison with this 
yoke and these burdens my yoke is easy and my burden is 
light. Leave your bondage ; lay down your crushing burdens. 
Take my service upon you, yield to my requirements, and you 
shall find them easy and light, and they shall be rest to your 
soul." 

There was the stern legalist painfully endeavoring to estab- 
lish his own righteousness before God by a vigorous compli- 
ance, as he supposed, with the demands of the law, — not 
knowing that " to condemn is all the law can do," for by it is 
the knowledge of sin, but not justification with God, — and to 
him laboring under so stern and exacting a master as is the law 
to a sinner, and sinking under so heavy a burden as his accu- 
mulated transgressions had laid upon him, the Saviour pro- 
claims, Compared with this, my yoke is easy and my burden is 
light. I ask no such slavish toil, no such cheerless labor. I 
bind upon my people no such crushing burdens. 

To the devotee of the world who is seeking in its varied 
forms of business or of pleasure the substantialness and the 
reality which his soul longs for, but fails to find ; who is 
wearied with the fruitless chase, and sinking down in sadness 
under the burden of a realization of the world's vanity ; who is 
heartsick with a consciousness that every object he has grasped 
or can grasp is but a gilded toy, when laid in the balance of 
the soul, or ashes when offered to its cravings ; who is indeed 
burdened with the full and pressing conviction of the hollow- 
ness of the world and all its pretensions, — to him who is thus 
world-weary and heavy laden, Christ says in tones that would 
win him away from his bondage and fruitless toils, Compared 
with these, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The very 
emptiness of all you now possess is a wearisome burden to your 
soul ; the reality of what you find with me is less, far less 
heavy, nay it is lightness itself, since it rather bears up the soul 
than asks to be borne up by it. 

And to him who has come to feel the guilt of his sins, and 
to tremble under the burden of the wrath which that guilt has 
brought upon him ; who has found that the way of the trans- 
gressor is hard, and yet realizes that the galling yoke of sin is 
bound upon him, and feels himself unable to break it from his 



Matt. xi. 30.] The Service of Christ not hard. 197 

neck, — to him especially Christ speaks. He presses upon his 
attention the comparison between what he now is toiling under 
and that to which He himself invites him. Compared with 
the yoke of sin my yoke is easy, He says. Compared with the 
burden of your sins, their guilt and misery, my burden is light. 

2. But though there is this clearly implied comparison in 
our Saviour's language, yet his words convey an absolute sense 
to the mind. 

The service of Christ is not a hard service considered in it- 
self alone, without comparison with any other service. The 
duties which He requires of his followers are, in themselves, 
not burdensome. They do not weary the soul, nor waste its 
life. On the contrary, the more the soul yields to his require- 
ments the stronger does it become and the more vigorous. The 
more completely those who submit to Him enter into the ser- 
vice of Christ, the more do they " renew their strength. They 
mount up with wings as eagles ; they run and are not weary ; 
and they walk and are not faint." 

1. I remark, first, that the service of Christ is not hard, be- 
cause all its requirements are right, reasonable, and proper. 
He demands nothing unreasonable. He exacts nothing of any 
man that both his judgment and conscience do not unhesi- 
tatingly pronounce to be suitable. He asks nothing unjust. 

Test his requirements, my hearers. Search his Word and 
you will find not one demand made of a servant of Christ, 
which your conscience and judgment do not at once approve. 
His first and great command, that which embraces in itself all 
others, is this, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." Is it not 
right that you should thus love God ? Is He not worthy of 
such love? Is it more than simple justice for you thus to love 
Him ? But out of this command proceeds every duty that an 
accountable being can possibly owe to his God. Every duty 
is included in it. If, therefore, the command itself is right, 
every duty that it calls upon you to render to God is right. 
There can be no wrong in that which is all right. 

The second command which is indeed involved in the first 
is, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Is this wrong ? 
Will your conscience, my hearers, condemn such love and say 
that it is not right ? Do you sin in thus loving your fellow- 
man — your neighbor ? 



198 The Service of Christ not hard. [Serm. xxi. 

This requirement is also reasonable. Any object should be 
loved according to its worth. Your neighbor is in the sight of 
God as valuable as yourself. His soul is as precious. He may 
have sunk far below you in outward degradation and in overt 
guilt. His character may be vastly below yours in purity and 
honor, and this degradation you cannot take pleasure in, nor 
are you required to. But the man himself as the creature of 
God, and heir with you to a common inheritance, is as high in 
the scale of worth, and therefore worthy of as much love as 
you yourself are. If you then put him beneath your own self 
in your love you act unreasonably. You are unjust to him. 
For in your heart and in the presence of your conscience you 
cannot say but he is as the creature of God worthy of as much 
love as yourself. And when God demands that you exercise 
this love toward Him, his requirement is not unreasonable or 
unjust. He requires only that you love a thing according to 
its worth. And the sense in which He would have his com- 
mand understood by us He has made too plain to be misunder- 
stood. He has made it plain in the parable of the good Samar- 
itan. Does not your conscience approve of such love to one's 
neighbor ? Was ever one so depraved as to disapprove it ? He 
has made it plain by his own example. While we were yet 
sinners He commended his love toward us in that then Christ 
died for us. He so loved the world when it was in guilt and 
degradation that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in Him might not perish but have everlasting 
life. While we are yet enemies and guilty, and plunged deep 
in misery, He sends his Spirit and calls us to repentance, and 
is long suffering that He may lead all to salvation. This is 
the love of God. It is love to us as his creatures, and as moral 
and accountable agents. It is not love of complacence nor love 
of our sin. If God so loved us, we ought also to love one an- 
other. It is right that we should. 

But as the command to love God supremely embraces every 
duty toward God, so does this command to love our neighbor 
as ourselves embrace every duty God demands of us toward 
men. The command put into another form with practical 
specification is, u All things whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them." This embraces every 
act of a man's life that is to affect others. 



Matt. xi. 30.] The Service of Christ not hard. 199 

Never yet was a conscience so blinded or so seared, or so en- 
feebled and perverted but it would unhesitatingly pronounce 
every distinguishing requirement of the gospel to be right. 
Never yet was there a judgment so warped but it would pro- 
nounce every one of them just, and in the highest degree 
proper and reasonable. 

But no requirement which is right and proper and just can 
be hard. 

The service of Christ, therefore, is not a hard service, because 
its requirements are all right and proper. They are such as 
He ought to make of us, and such as every moral being ought 
at once and without ceasing to comply with.. 

2. The service of Christ is not hard, because in every de- 
mand it makes upon us, it seeks to promote our own highest 
interests. 

The Word of God everywhere recognizes our own interests 
and happiness as connected with our duties. God is not willing 
you should be damned — you ought not to be willing. Under 
the law, the word of God is, " Obey, I beseech thee, the voice 
of the Lord, so it shall be well unto thee, and thy soul shall 
live." Under the gospel, the word of God always urges 
repentance, and always does it with the powerful motive, 
" Thou shalt live." The voice of the gospel is, " Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." It was the 
gospel, therefore, which cried in the language of the prophet 
Ezekiel, " Turn ye, turn ye," and urged this as the reason, 
" for why will ye die ? " and in that of Isaiah, " Let the 
wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, 
and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy 
upon him ; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." 

This is the tenor of all the requirements of Christ's service. 
They seek the glory of God in the highest good of those who 
yield to them. Whatever He puts upon us to do, as his fol- 
lowers, He puts distinctly before us the promotion of our own 
best interest in the doing of it. Though He has undoubted 
right to our perfect obedience, regardless of any results that 
may accrue to us ; and though obedience, implicit and entire, 
is our duty, whatever the consequences may be, and regardless 
of them, yet, as a matter of fact, He has never thus separated 
duty and interest, obedience and reward. " Whosoever shall 



200 The Service of Christ not hard. [Serm. xxi. 

give to drink unto one of these little ones, a cup of cold water 
only, in the name of a disciple, Verily I say unto you, he 
shall in no wise lose his re ward.' * 

That service can never be called hard, certainly, in which its 
subjects are thus dealt with. No servant is treated with se- 
verity who is never required to do an act, to discharge a duty, 
to forego an enjoyment, which his own best interests do not 
also require of him. 

It is this feature of the service of Christ which makes it one 
of cheerfulness and hope. Hope is always an anchor to the 
soul. Hope shines in upon every step of the pathway that 
obedience marks out. There is ever before him who walks in 
it the recompense of reward. There is awaiting him, the 
Saviour's cheering words, " Well done, good and faithful ser- 
vant, enter into the joy of thy Lord." However great the 
labor, however severe the effort to be put forth, either in doing 
or submitting to the will of Christ, hope shines down upon 
him who toils and him who suffers. Hope sweetens toils that 
else might be exhausting, and lightens burdens that otherwise 
would be crushing. Hope reaches forward and upward, and 
brings strength and support from heaven. It was when Paul 
cast his eye forward to the end of his course and thought of 
the rest of heaven in which all the mighty interests of his soul 
were centred, — it was then that he looked upon all the toils 
and sacrifices and sufferings which the service of Christ de- 
manded of him, and exclaimed, " None of these things move 
me ; neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might 
finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have re- 
ceived of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of 
God." There was no hardness, no severity, in the service of 
Christ, as Paul was then meeting all of its most urgent claims. 

And again, when the providence of God led him as an 
Apostle and a Christian into deep waters, and the trials of a 
disciple and faithful follower of Jesus were pressing in upon 
him, and afflictions multiplied upon him in quick succession, — 
it was then that hope lifted up the burden from his soul that 
he should not be crushed beneath it, and made it easy, when 
otherwise it would have been too much for him to bear. " Our 
light affliction," said he, looking to the recompense of re- 
ward, the highest good which was working out for him in and 



Matt. xi. 30.] Tlu Service of Christ not hard. 201 

by his trials, — " Our light affliction, which is but for a mo- 
ment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory ; while we look not at the things which are seen, but 
at the things which are not seen." 

At that moment the Apostle would have responded to the 
language of our text, and would have exclaimed from the full- 
ness of his soul, " His yoke is easy and his burden is light." 
Though it was deep darkness all around him, yet because he 
was a servant of Christ, it was all light within him. The light 
of heaven which hope brought down to him from Christ the 
Promiser, dispelled the darkness from his soul. 

After this, when Paul came to the final act of his earthly 
service to Christ, to honor him in a martyr's death, it was the 
same thing, — his highest good, connected with all his sub- 
mission to the will of his master, — it was this that came in to 
lift the yoke from his neck and make it easy ; the burden from 
his shoulders to make it light. How calm, how peaceful is his 
whole aspect, when he says, with the martyr's suffering before 
him and in full view : " I am now ready to be offered, and the 
time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, 
I have finished my course. I have kept the faith ; henceforth 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, 
the righteous judge, shall give me at that day." The martyr's 
crown took away the sting of the martyr's sufferings. Every 
word breathes a most earnest and loving indorsement of his 
Saviour's language, " My yoke is easy and my burden is light." 

What the service of Christ was to Paul, that it is to every 
one of his faithful followers. It has its reward full and glo- 
rious for each. Hope makes it a present reality and a future 
inheritance ; and there can be no hardness in the service that 
leads to such a reward. Indeed, the gospel, which is — in 
slightly another sense — the yoke of Christ, is nothing more 
than hope itself, shining in upon the otherwise unalleviated 
wretchedness and despair of sinners ; and the service to which 
it calls them is to flee from the cruel tyranny of sin that has 
so long held them ; to throw off its burden, which has so long 
crushed them ; and to escape from the wrath of God, and find 
refuge in his favor. 

Such a service is not a hard one. There is no cruelty in it, 
but only goodness and mercy. 

3. The service of Christ is not a hard service, because it is 



202 The Service of Christ not hard. [Serm. XXI. 

a service of love. " The love of Christ constraineth us," is 
the language of every true disciple's heart, and his experience 
is, " We love Him because He first loved us." 

But no labor of love is burdensome. Every yoke that love 
puts upon the neck, and to which love bows the neck, is easy 
to him who bears it. No burden that love imposes, and which 
love receives and cherishes, is heavy. Love makes all burdens 
light, and all tasks easy. Nothing is hard to love. Jacob 
served seven years for Rachel ; and they seemed unto him but 
a few days, for the love he had to her. So we serve Christ a 
whole life- time in trials. Hence it is that every follower of 
Christ says from his soul, I delight in the law of God, after the 
inward man ; and he often exclaims with the Psalmist : " Oh, 
how love I thy law ; it is my meditation all the day." A ser- 
vice of love is not a hard service. There is no cringing ser- 
vility in it. In servility there is fear, but perfect love casteth 
out fear, and a perfect service to Christ is a service of perfect 
love. Love to Christ now and forever, on earth and in heaven, 
will say : " His yoke is easy and his burden is light." 

" Love is the golden chain that binds 
The happy souls above ; 
And he's an heir of heaven that finds 
His bosom glow with love." 

The question that Christ puts to every inquiring sinner is, Be- 
lievest thou me ? But to the real believer, his inquiry is, as it 
was to Peter, " Lovest thou me? " Faith works by love, and 
ever brings into exercise that love which makes all works easy. 

But the objection arises in your minds, — perhaps it has 
followed us at each step of our progress in this discourse, — 
Do not the Scriptures represent the way to eternal life as diffi- 
cult ? Do they not make the gate to the way straight, and all 
the way narrow ? And is it not an entrance into this gate and 
a walking in this way which the Saviour demands of us ? All 
this is true. It is true that the gaining of eternal life is a dif- 
ficult matter for one who has sinned. The Scriptures do always 
so represent it. And I cannot see that the admission conflicts 
with what has been said. 

1. It is hard for a sinner to repent. He clings to his sins. 
He does not like to give them up. The habit of sinning is like 
bars of iron that he cannot break. No sinner did ever yet, if 
we rightly understand the subject, find it easy to begin to re- 



Matt. xi. 30.] The Service of Christ not hard. 203 

pent of his sins and forsake them. They have clung to him 
and made it difficult for him to turn to God. Yet he must re- 
pent or he cannot be saved. If he repent not he will perish. 

But what is the difficulty here ? Is it the work of repent- 
ance itself to which Christ is calling the sinner ? Is it the 
exercising of repentance which is so difficult ? No. It is the 
sinner's vigorous opposition to the claim of Christ. In this 
opposition of his own heart is all the hardness. The yoke of 
Christ is not yet on the neck ; but the yoke of sin is, and this 
it is that is so galling. Christ calls you, sinner, to repent of 
your sins, and to forsake them. But this you are unwilling to 
do. Your conscience and your reason urge you to obey the call 
of Christ. But your will rebels. Then, you have not yet 
taken the yoke of Christ upon you. Submission to his author- 
ity, and yielding to his demands, and this only, is the taking 
upon you of his yoke. Only yield, — only let repentance for 
your wickedness take possession of your soul, as He requires, 
then the hardness is all gone. Every true penitent rejoices in 
his repentance. He is glad in his sorrow. He smiles through 
his tears. " The wormwood and the gall " are found in the 
resistance of the soul to the claims of Christ, while conscience 
is smarting under the keen accusings of the law. Cease to 
contend with Christ, and begin to serve Him, then the heavy 
burden rolls off, and the light one takes its place. 

2. Christ demands that you shall believe in Him ; and you 
must believe or you cannot have eternal life. But it is hard 
for the sinner to begin to believe. It is hard for him to forsake 
all his own righteousness, and to rest alone on the worthiness 
of Christ. It is humbling to his pride ; it is crucifying him- 
self. 

It is hard for him, also, conscious as he is of guilt and unwor- 
thiness, to trust the faithfulness of the Redeemer. He fears to 
commit the vast interests of his soul into the Saviour's hands, 
and fall into his outstretched arms of mercy. Oh, it is hard 
for him to begin to do it. He feels as though he were required 
to step off from a lofty precipice, with nothing to support him 
but empty air. But God's Spirit comes to his help, and he thus 
exclaims : — 

" Why was I made to hear thy voice, 
And enter while there's room, 
When thousands make a wretched choice, 
And rather starve than come? 



204 The Service of Christ not hard. [Serm. xxi. 

" 'Twas the same love that spread the feast, 
That sweetly forced me in ; 
Else I had still refused to taste, 
And perished in my sin." 

The gracious interposition of God in his behalf, removes 
this hardness, which his own unbelief puts in the way of his 
soul's salvation. But this unbelief, this refusing to believe, is 
not serving Christ. This is standing out against Christ's com- 
mands, and not obedience to Him. Every moment you remain 
in unbelief, my dying hearer, you remain in sin. Your unbe- 
lief is rebellion. You have not, therefore, the yoke of Christ 
upon you. It is not his burden which is pressing you down, 
and crushing your soul beneath its awful weight. But when 
the heart believes, — when it implicitly trusts and rests itself 
like a weary child on the arms of Almighty love and truth, — 
oh, then it is not hard ! 

3. And finally. It is generally made a hard task to walk in 
the path of obedience to Christ and persevere in it to the end 
of life. It demands constant watchfulness, — constant self-de- 
nial, — cutting off every right hand that offends, and plucking 
out every right eye that brings sin and ruin to the soul. 

These things are hard to the natural man. They are trying 
to the flesh. But consider, though Christ demands self-denial, 
He does not demand that we should so set our hearts on things 
contrary to his will, and to our own interests, as to make self- 
denial, in its severe aspects, necessary. Nor does He ask us to 
cling to these things. The severity and the hardness of this, 
and of all else that makes up the life of a Christian, is in the 
struggle which self maintains against Christ, refusing to sub- 
mit to Him and serve Him. Here is the only hardness of self- 
denial, — the only severity. But this, you perceive, is not serv- 
ing Christ, but rebelling against Him. It is not doing his will, 
but resisting it. It is not submitting to his authority, but op- 
posing it. It is not taking his yoke upon you, but rejecting it. 
It is not bearing his burden, but casting it off. 

Let the heart fully receive Christ's law, let the will fully 
submit, yield a cordial and free and entire obedience of the soul 
to the Lord, then the struggle ceases ; then peace smiles upon 
all within ; the spirit rests in love and confidence on its Re- 
deemer and Saviour. The yoke then is easy and the burden is 
light. 



SERMON XXII. 

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY WITH HIS PEOPLE. 



Heb. iv. 15. — We have not an High-priest which cannot be touched with the feeling 
of our infirmities: but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 

TN the verse preceding this it is said, " We have a great High- 
-*- priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of 
God." Of this High-priest it is here written that He is not one 
" which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, 
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." 

Though He is, " the Son of God " and has " passed into the 
heavens," yet He can feel for his people in this world in all 
their weaknesses and temptations and sufferings. More than 
this, He not only feels for them but He feels with them. He 
enters into their sorrows as one who has felt what they feel, 
and is intensely interested in them personally as the objects of 
his special love and favor. This is the main thought of the 
text : " He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities." It 
is evident from what immediately follows, that the word in- 
firmities has reference not only to weaknesses themselves, but 
to all the ills and trials and afflictions to which human weak- 
ness makes us subject. Mental and bodily sufferings ; the al- 
lurements and disappointments of the world ; the temptations 
of the great adversary, all are included, and all are felt by the 
great High-priest when his people feel them. 

The doctrine of the text is that Christ sympathizes with his 
people in all their trials. He feels for them and with them. 

" How can He do this ? " once asked a deeply afflicted father 
and mother. " How can Christ sympathize with us ? How 
can He enter into our feelings and know our grief ? " These 
parents were in very great distress on account of the loss of an 
only son, in the morning of his childhood. The words we have 
read to you for our text were quoted to them with the hope 



206 Christ's Sympathy with his People. [Serm. xxii. 

that, as they were Christians, they would be influenced to be- 
take themselves with more earnestness and faith to their great 
High-priest for his sympathy and support in their heavy trial. 
These questions were their only response when the words be- 
fore us were quoted to them. It was found to be necessary to 
open more fully to their minds the qualifications of " Jesus the 
Son of God," to be the High-priest of his people, and to show 
them that their limitation of his fitness was unauthorized and 
contrary to the truth. The three following answers were given 
to their inquiry, " How can Christ sympathize with us ? " 

1. He is omniscient. He knows all your circumstances, even 
to the most minute particulars. He knows every thought of 
your minds, and every emotion of your hearts. He reads them 
all far more clearly than it is possible for you to describe them. 
He sees every tear you shed, hears every sigh you heave. He 
goes with you when you go to the grave of your child " to 
weep there," and comes back with you when you return to your 
desolated home to weep yet more bitterly there. When you 
look upon the vacant little seat, the unoccupied bed, the un- 
used playthings, and the unnumbered silent remembrancers of 
his face and form and presence, Christ is with you beholding 
too. He sees each thing you look upon, and knows all its his- 
tory, and is acquainted with every feeling it awakens in your 
breasts. Your sorrows are among the " all things " which are 
declared — in immediate connection with the words quoted — 
to be " naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we 
have to do. For there is no creature that is not manifest in 
his sight." 

The omniscience of Christ is an essential element in his fit- 
ness to be our great High-priest, as it is of his fitness to be our 
Saviour and King. But for this He could not be either the 
Priest or Saviour or King which the soul craves when it be- 
comes conscious of its wants. If Christ does not know me en- 
tirely, and all that pertains to me, then I cannot yield all my 
powers and my person to Him in faith and obedience as my 
King. I must then look for my king to one whose eye sur- 
veys a wider field, whose hand is laid with intelligent control 
on all within me and about me. So, too, if Christ is less than 
omniscient I cannot trust in Him as an all-sufficient Saviour. 
He must know all things to be a satisfying Saviour to a soul 



Heb. iv. 15.] Christ's Sympathy ivith his People. 207 

that has been awakened to a sense of its lost condition. If He 
knows less than all things, then He may not know the full ex- 
tent of my ruin ; and He may fail to provide the deliverance 
which my salvation calls for. And if He is less than omnis- 
cient, how can I come in faith to Him as my High-priest able 
to have compassion upon me, to the full extent of the infirm- 
ities by which I am encompassed ? 

But Christ is burdened with no such limitation in his great 
offices. " All power," He says to us, " is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth." Power to know all things is included. 
" In Him dwelleth also," so an Apostle assures us, " all the 
fullness of the godhead." No attribute of deity is wanting to 
Him ; nor is any one attribute stinted in his possession. All 
are in Him in unlimited fullness. It is our privilege, therefore, 
to come to Him as one having in Himself all the fullness of 
knowledge. We may take the Evangelist's words in their 
farthest reach, when he says of our High-priest : " He knows 
what is in man ; " and we must receive it as something more 
than the exaggeration of hyperbole when Peter exclaims, " Lord, 
thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee." 

We have not, therefore, a High-priest who cannot be touched 

with a feeling of our infirmities, because we have not one who 

does not know our infirmities and all our wants and trials ; nor 

one who does not know all our circumstances and relations, and 

all the events, great and small, in our history. 

" Those watchful eyes that never sleep, 
Survey the world around." 

He is omniscient. This removes the barrier which is raised 
up against us in all our endeavors to sympathize with those 
who are in trials which we ourselves have never felt. We can 
know another's sorrows only as we have experienced similar 
sorrows in our own history. We may feel for others who are 
suffering under afflictions of which we have no personal experi- 
ence, — we may feel for them deeply, — but they will always 
know, and we ourselves shall know, that we do not in the truest 
sense feel with them. We cannot reach the hand of sympa- 
thy down to the depths of their grief. We cannot ourselves 
go down to where they are. There is a something that con- 
sciously separates us from them. That something is our igno- 
rance. We cannot sympathize with them in the full sense of 



208 Christ's Sympathy with his People. [Serm. xxii. 

the term, because our own experience has not made us ac- 
quainted with their peculiar griefs. We do not know what 
they are. Nothing but experience can make us fit to sym- 
pathize. Let us once taste of the same sorrow, and learn in our 
own selves its bitterness, then the barrier is gone which sepa- 
rated us from them, and they and we become conscious that we 
now feel with them. But this knowledge of human sufferings 
enters into the omniscience of our High-priest. He knows 
them because He knows all things. He is ignorant of nothing. 
He knows intimately all that we are and all that we feel. 

" His wisdom is a boundless deep, 
Where all our thoughts are drowned." 

All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with 
whom we have to do. 

2. Another answer given to the inquiry made by those sor- 
rowing parents was, that Christ can sympathize with us in our 
trials because He himself drank the cup of human suffering to 
its dregs. He can feel for men, because He himself is a man. 
He can sympathize with men in their griefs and sorrows be- 
cause He himself " was a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief." 

It is not likely that the fact that our Lord is omniscient 
would have great weight with one in distress and needing di- 
vine sympathy, if the knowledge of this fact was not connected 
with the knowledge that He himself had suffered as a man, and 
tasted of human sorrow so as to know it, not alone by a divine 
omniscience but by sad personal experience. It is the remem- 
brance of this truth that gives the others its power over our 
minds. There was something peculiar in the sufferings of 
Christ. His life on earth was such that each one who knows 
what that life was, is assured that no sorrows of any class of 
men are greater than those that He suffered. He was spot- 
lessly holy in a world reeking with the foulest sins and most 
fearful rebellion against God. All his years were passed in the 
midst of scenes which were in harrowing discord to Him. The 
wickedness of men, their utter godlessness, their odious selfish- 
ness, all were a constant and heavy trial to his pure spirit. In 
addition to this He had all the common infirmities of humanity. 
He had its passions which must be curbed and controlled. He 
had its appetites which must be held in subjection, and through 



Heb. iv. 15.] Christ's Sympathy with his People. 209 

which He could be tempted. He had his human friendships to 
be broken in upon by the rude hand of death, or to be turned 
to enmities perhaps by the tongue of detraction and deceit and 
slander. He was a child, and suffered the trials of childhood. 
He was also a youth, and as such passed through the experi- 
ences peculiar to that period of life. He was a man, and bore 
on his shoulders all the responsibilities of manhood, and felt in 
Himself the full pressure of its realities. And who can say that 
his nights of solitary watching and wrestling prayer upon the 
mountains, — his incessant toils by day, — his heavy sorrows, 
— his deep poverty, — his loneliness in a world crowded with a 
generation that had no sympathy with Him, even as the young 
have no sympathy with the peculiar trials of the aged, — who 
will say that all these did not do for Him what many years 
have done for those who have grown old ? Did He not, in the 
few years of his manhood, have an experience that carried Him 
through more than the ordinary experience of manhood down 
to the limits of extreme old age ? 

But there were trials, sorrows, agonies into which our High- 
priest was plunged, which do not belong to the lot of ordinary 
men in this world, and which place Him far beyond all others 
in the depth and extent of sufferings. If you will remember 
the temptation to which He was subjected in the wilderness, — 
his agony and bloody sweat in Gethsemane, — the indignities 
and insults of his mock trial, — the crown of thorns, — the bear- 
ing of his cross to Calvary amid the jeers and taunts and cruel 
blows of the brutal soldiery and populace, — the crucifixion with 
all its horrors, — if you will remember these you will not doubt 
in your heart that your great High-priest drank far more 
deeply into the cup of human sorrows than any of us. Now add 
once more to all these ingredients of his sufferings that bearing 
of our sins by which He made atonement for us, and the pic- 
ture of " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief " will be 
complete. There is something very significant and touching 
in the language of the sacred writers respecting these suffer- 
ings of the Redeemer. They convey the thought that in bear- 
ing our sins He suffered not only their penalty but their conse- 
quences in Himself. He stood in the place of the guilty of 
every class and condition, — in the place of each of us, Chris- 
tian hearers, — and bore in his own person what our sins had 

14 



210 Christ' 's Sympathy with his People. [Serm. xxii 

brought down and all that they would else have brought down 
upon us. Listen to a few divine declarations of this great fun- 
damental truth, the main-spring of all our hopes of salvation : 
" He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for 
our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, 
and with his stripes we are healed." " Surely He hath borne 
our griefs and carried our sorrows." " Him who knew no sin 
God hath made to be sin for us, that we might be made the 
righteousness of God in Him." He experienced the sinner's 
doom that the sinner might enjoy the reward of his righteous- 
ness. His own words carry our minds still deeper into that 
awful abyss of mysterious suffering into which He was plunged 
when He " put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." At the 
opening of that fearful scene that none but angels, perhaps, 
witnessed in the garden, He said to the three trusted disciples 
whom He had chosen to watch with Him in his agony, " My 
soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." This was the 
extreme of suffering. It could go no farther. It was the sor- 
row of death ! There was no deep beyond this. He had 
reached the lowest point to which humanity could descend. 
In this sorrow — sorrow unto death — He remained until the 
cry was wrung from his inmost soul, " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ! " This was the hour of atonement. 
Then our Lord died, — then the penalty of our sins was visited 
on Him. 

Let your minds dwell upon these words of the sacred writers, 
as they speak of the sufferings He bore to make atonement for 
our sins, and you will no longer question the ability of our 
great High-priest to sympathize with human sorrow in all its 
degrees and peculiarities, and to its lowest depths. " He was 
tried in all points like as we are, yet without sin." 

This was a necessary part of his fitness to be a High-priest. 
By his own experience He became one that could " have com- 
passion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way." 
He tasted both the penalty and the fruit of their sins, and 
knows thus what their sufferings are. 

The Scriptures teach us that our Redeemer entered into these 
human sufferings for the express purpose, among other things, 
of being prepared by them for his office. " For it became Him 
for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bring- 



Heb. iv. 15.] Christ's Sympathy with his People, 211 

ing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salva- 
tion perfect through sufferings." " Wherefore in all things it 
behooved Him to be made like unto his brethren, that He 
might be a merciful and faithful High-priest in things pertain- 
ing to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 
For in that He himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is 
able to succor them that are tempted." 

These were not mere idle words then, nor the utterances of 
mere poetic fancy, when Watts wrote, — 

" Touched with a sympathy within, 
He knows our feeble frame ; 
He knows what sore temptations mean, 
For He has felt the same. 

" He in the days of feeble flesh 
Poured out his cries and tears, 
And in his measure feels afresh 
What every member bears." 

3. A third answer given to the question of those heart- 
broken parents was, that Christ cannot but sympathize with us 
in our trials, because of the intense love He bears to us if we 
are his people, and because of the deep interest He takes in 
all that pertains to us, because of his oneness with us. " Of 
the love of Christ for you," it was said, " you have no doubt." 
He commended his love toward us in that while we were yet 
sinners, He died for us ; " and greater love hath no man than 
this that a man lay down his life for his friends." This Christ 
did for all his people, and in doing this He revealed a depth of 
love for them, of which they can form but a very inadequate 
conception. His love, moreover, is revealed in the representa- 
tions He gives of it when He speaks of the relation which they 
bear to Him. They are all members of his body ; He is their 
living head. He is the vine ; they are the branches. If there 
is any truth in these representations, and you do not question 
that they are pure truth, then our great High-priest is not 
only such an one as can sympathize with his people in all their 
sorrows, but such an one as cannot but sympathize with them. 
The head cannot be indifferent to the sufferings of any mem- 
ber ; but on the contrary it counts them its own. The vine 
cannot be unaffected with an injury done to the smallest of its 
branches, but it receives it as an injury done to itself. 



212 Christ's Sympathy with his People. [Serm. xxii. 

This deep and tender tone of the Redeemer to all his people, 
and his oneness with them, are the crowning qualifications for 
his priesthood. Omniscience might, for aught we know, be to 
Him all that He needed, to constitute Him a sympathizing 
friend, and enable Him to enter into the trials of his people, 
and to feel with them in their sorrows. But before He could 
be this to our apprehension, personal experience in human woe 
was needful. We must see Him, as one who had been in our 
place, and carried our sorrows. Nor would this suffice, if the 
fact of tenderest love, and an interest in us and in our well-being 
that was stronger than death, were not present in our minds as 
the pledge and assurance that nothing of omniscient knowledge, 
or of human experience, would be lacking in his regard for us. 
But for this, we might allow to our minds all that is claimed 
for Christ's ability to sympathize with us, and yet fail of the 
comfort and support which that ability is intended to give. 
He might know all our trials ; and He might have had deep 
experience in human sorrow, but how should we know or how 
could we be assured that this ability to sympathize with men, 
availed for us, or drew upon us his regards ? It does not fol- 
low because one has all the qualifications necessary " to feel for 
others' woes," that he does feel for them. He may neverthe- 
less turn away his eyes from beholding and his mind from 
thinking upon them. He may be so preoccupied by other 
thoughts and higher interests, that the suffering ones with 
whom he might feel a kindred sorrow shall fail to awaken his 
tenderness. They are bound to him by none but the common 
ties of humanity, and the fountains of his sympathy may not 
be unsealed to them. But let the sufferer be one whom you 
tenderly love, and in whose life and happiness you feel an in- 
terest equal to the interest you feel in your own life and hap- 
piness, and with whom your life is bound up so that he is, as it 
were, a part of your very self, — you could not then be regard- 
less of his sufferings. If he were your own child, or your par- 
ent, or the companion of your life, then how sure he would be 
that every tender susceptibility of your nature would be awak- 
ened towards him, and flow forth in a full and gushing tide of 
sympathy. 

Christ's love to Ins people — to you — is represented as 
greater than the love of a mother to her child. His love is 



Heb. iv. 15.] Christ's Sympathy with his People. 213 

infinite and eternal. It was so great, and so constant, that it 
followed you, my Christian hearers, into all your guilt and alien- 
ation and wickedness, and never rested till it had brought you 
into his fold. And now it is so strong that an inspired Apostle 
exclaims in triumphant admiration of it, "I am persuaded 
that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from 
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The words 
of the prophet Isaiah are full of the same sentiment : " Sing, 
O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, and break forth into sing- 
ing, O mountains, for the Lord hath comforted his people, and 
will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, The Lord 
hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a 
woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have com- 
passion on the son of her w r omb ? Yea, they may forget, yet 
will I not forget thee. I have graven thee upon the palms of 
my hands." 

Shall a mother's love for her children, her interest in them, 
and her oneness with them, give her access to all their sorrows, 
so that she shall feel them as her own ? then how much more 
shall the love of Christ, which is so much deeper, his interest, 
which is so much greater, and his oneness, which is so much 
more complete and lasting, enable Him to enter more deeply 
still into our griefs, and feel a more tender and thorough sym- 
pathy with us in all our sorrows ! 

Verily, then, " we have not a High-priest who cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was tempted 
in all points like as we are, yet without sin." May I not, then, 
brethren, make the Apostolic exhortation my own, and say, 
" Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that 
we may obtain mercy, and find grace, to help in time of need." 
May I not say with the Apostle Peter, to every burdened, 
troubled, and tried soul, " Cast all your care upon Him, for He 
careth for you." 

I cannot close without adding a word, at least, to such of 
you, my hearers, as have no hope in the Redeemer. This 
great High-priest has no less of tenderness towards you, than 
He had towards us, before we sought his mercy. He is even 
now saying to you, as He once said to us, in all the ten- 



214 Chrises Sympathy with his People. [Serm. xxii. 

derness of infinite love, " Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye 
die ? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, 
saith the Lord, but that he turn and live." He says to you, 
as He said to us while we were under sin, — " Come unto 
me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest." It is the same tenderness which says to his people, 
in all their trials and sufferings, Fear not ; for I have re- 
deemed thee ; I have called thee by thy name ; thou art 
mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow 
thee : when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be 
burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am 
the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. The 
same tenderness that says this to his people, says to you, who 
are yet unreconciled, and in rebellion against Him, " Seek ye 
the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is 
near : let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man 
his thoughts ; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will 
have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly 
pardon." 



SERMON XXIII. 

THE TRUTH THE INSTRUMENT OF SANCTIFICATION. 

♦ 

John xvii. 17. — Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy word is truth. 

HOLINESS is the great requirement of true religion. " Be 
ye holy in all manner of conversation," is its law. 

Holiness is also its great aim. All its means and agencies 
are appointed and sustained with the distinct purpose of secur- 
ing it in the hearts and lives of men. It counts nothing gained, 
therefore, if this has not been secured, whatever else has been. 
It counts nothing of any value in one's religious experience or 
deeds, if holiness has not been its moving spring or its fruit. 

Hence the principles and teachings of true religion bar the 
approach to God of every soul in which unholy purposes and 
desires bear sway. They deny that it is possible for it to en- 
joy his favor. They steadily declare that " without holiness 
no man shall see the Lord." " If I regard iniquity in my 
heart," says the Psalmist, u the Lord will not hear me." The 
prophet Habakkuk cries to God, " Thou art of purer eyes than 
to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." And, finally, 
our Lord Himself declares to all who have sinned, " Except ye 
repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 

The religion of the Bible differs in this respect from all other 
religions. Of no other is holiness the great and distinguishing 
requirement. And more than this, just to the extent that those 
religions which claim to be Scriptural are false in this claim, 
their demand for holiness becomes less and less stringent, or 
ceases altogether. They come practically to allow that men 
may be altogether unholy, both in life and character, and yet 
be the objects of the divine favor and complacence. Culture, 
amiability, morality, patriotism, an observance of certain rites, 
— going through certain exercises of mind or certain processes 
of feeling, — some one of these, or of a multitude of other as- 



216 Truth the Instrument of Sanctifieation. [Serm. xxm. 

sumed excellences, is allowed to come in to balance sin and 
offset it, and commend the unholy soul to God in all its unholi- 
ness. 

But it is not so with the religion of the Bible. It encourages 
no man to think that he is right in the sight of God unless he 
is holy. It opens the door of heaven to no one unless he is 
holy. It sees nothing in one who is not holy with which God 
can be well pleased. 

It was natural, then, that our Saviour should set holiness be- 
fore his disciples as that which ought to be the special object 
of their desires and endeavors ; and that He should, as He has 
here done, incorporate his own intense desire for them in this 
particular, into his ever prevailing intercessions. Hence his 
recorded desire and prayer for all his people is, " Sanctify them 
through thy truth ; thy word is truth." 

To sanctify is to make holy. It is to separate the soul from 
all sin, and consecrate and conform the whole heart and life to 
the will and service of God. This is the will of the Lord re- 
garding his people. It is the great requirement of his religion. 
It is the end He has in view in calling them to be his people, 
and in disciplining them for heaven. 

The Saviour's prayer here indicates that the instrument by 
which this work is to be done is the truth which God has re- 
vealed in his Word. And this is in perfect harmony with all 
the Scriptures. They everywhere teach that the sanctifying 
agent of men is the Holy Spirit ; but that the truth which is 
contained in the Word of God is alone the instrument. All 
other things are in vain without this. They may be, and they 
often are, useful to prepare the mind for the truth to enter, 
and become saving as it is set home by the Spirit. The provi- 
dences of God often have this preparative effect. But none of 
them are, in themselves, saving. The soul is never regener- 
ated, nor made holy by them directly, nor by anything but the 
truth which is revealed in the Bible. 

This, I say, is the uniform teaching of the Scriptures on this 
subject. Thus, e. g., the Psalmist says, " The law of the Lord 
is perfect, converting the soul." Our Saviour said to his dis- 
ciples, u Now ye are clean through the word which I have 
spoken unto you." The Apostle Paul says to the Ephesians, 
" Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it that He 



John xvii. 17.] Truth the Instrument of Sanctification. 217 

might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the 
Word." And the Apostle Peter says to those whom he is ad- 
dressing in his First Epistle, " Ye have purified your souls in 
obeying the truth through the Spirit, — being born again, not 
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, 
which liveth and abide th forever." Such is the tenor of all 
Scriptural statements on this point. 

The doctrine of the text, then, as of the Bible generally, is 
that the truth contained in the Word of God is the instrument 
by which men are made holy. 

I invite your attention to one view of the truth which has a 
manifest adaptation to produce this result. For we ought 
never to forget that the Spirit of God works not only by means 
but by appropriate means. There is always a fitness in the in- 
strumentalities that He employs to produce any given result, 
not less in the spiritual than in the natural world. Omnipo- 
tent though He is, there is no evidence that He ever disregards 
such fitness, or that He ever works a saving change in the heart 
of a sinner, or sanctification in that of a believer, by means not 
adapted to produce the renewal and sanctification. 

The aspect of the truth to which I wish to direct your atten- 
tion is that which, for want of a better form of statement, I 
must call the truthfulness of the truth. 

Its sanctifying power is in the fact that it is truth, and not 
falsehood nor error. Sanctification is a process of making 
right that which is wrong. The hearts and lives of those who 
need to be sanctified are influenced by falsehood, and not by 
truth. If truth governed them they would be right already, 
and need nothing further in order to holiness. In any depart- 
ment of life, indeed, or in any phase of character, all that is 
in accordance with truth needs no reforming. All that needs 
reforming in either heart or life is that which is prompted 
by error or falsehood. Some false principle, some erroneous 
idea, or some wrong feeling, is at the root of it, and gives it 
character. The thing needed is that principles, ideas, and feel- 
ings that are right and truthful should displace those that are 
false, and govern in their stead. In other words, that what is 
wrong through error and falsehood should be set right by truth. 
You see this in the business of life. If a man fails of success 
in his business you at once inquire for the cause of it, and ask 



218 Truth the Instrument of Sa?ietification. [Sebm. xxiii. 

what was wrong — i. g., not true — in his plans and calcula- 
tions and reliances. You assume it as certain that there has 
been miscalculation, false reasoning, or false trust somewhere. 
He believed something that was not true, and acted upon it as 
true, though false. This ruined him. Had he incorporated 
nothing but the truth into his plans they would not have mis- 
carried. Perhaps he trusted to abilities which he fancied him- 
self possessed of, but which he never had. His self-conceit told 
him a falsehood about himself, and this wrought his downfall. 
Perhaps he trusted to a faithfulness which he supposed others 
whom he depended on possessed, but which they did not. He 
trusted that which was not true then, and this was the cause of 
his failure. Perhaps he counted upon prospects of gains which 
seemed real to him, but which were only imaginary. He rea- 
soned falsely respecting them. He wrought a falsehood into 
his calculations ; failure was the necessary result. In all these 
cases, truth substituted for whatever was false would have saved 
him from disaster. 

You see the same thing exemplified in individual history, 
and in social and civil life. Character is ruined, reputation 
blasted, happiness destroyed simply by individuals acting on 
falsehoods as though they were truths. It was this, e. g., that 
blighted the prospects of that young man whom you saw make 
shipwreck of position, influence, everything indeed that was 
promising and fair, when he counted upon the supposed ad- 
vantages of dishonesty, and entered upon a career of pilfering, 
robbery, gambling, forgery, and ended it with a sentence of 
fifteen years in the Penitentiary. And what was it but a stu- 
pendous untruth, incorporated into the civil and political life of 
this country, contradicting the opening and self-evident prop- 
osition of the Declaration of Independence, that so nearly 
wrought our ruin as a nation in the demoralizations and dis- 
graces that culminated in the late Rebellion ? The truth, as 
faithfully acted on in our history as it was announced in our 
Declaration of Independence, would have saved us from the 
perils and losses and untold sufferings of the past few years. 

The course of human life, both private and national, is thus 
not unlike that of a seaman. If his chart and compass, and all 
his calculations are true, he sails clear of rocks and breakers 
and is safe. But admit an untruth into either chart or com- 



John xvii. 17.] Truth the Instrument of Sanctification. 219 

pass or calculations, and there is no safety for him. He is far 
more likely to meet with loss and wreck than to prosper. And 
if he has gone out of his way, nothing but a falling back upon 
the truth and being governed by it will restore him and make 
him secure. 

It is the same in religion. Whatever there is in the religious 
life or character that needs to be changed, it will be found, if 
it is carefully scrutinized, that it is the fruit of an untruth. 
The beginning of all wrong in this world was such a fruit. 
Our first mother believed a lie, and acted upon it. This 
brought death into the world, and all our woe. It is always 
thus in sinning. The mind accepts something as true which 
is false, and this turns the life out of its proper course, and 
makes a deformity in the character. No man can accept as 
true that which is false in anything that pertains to his moral 
and religious life, and not be thus injured. And, on the other 
hand, no man can substitute the opposite truth for this false- 
hood, and act upon it, without making right that which had 
been wrong. The truthfulness of the truth will set him right. 
And if the time shall ever come when truth alone shall have 
sway over his heart and life, he will then be holy, — made so 
by the truth. 

It is a recognition of this principle that lies at the foundation 
of all divine exhortations to the study of the Scriptures, and 
to growth in knowledge, and of all the declarations of evil con- 
sequences following unbelief of the truth. Thus Paul says, 
" If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost : in whom 
the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which 
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who 
is the image of God, should shine unto them." Again he says 
of those who perish under the working of Satan " with all 
power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness 
of unrighteousness," that it is " because they receive not the 
love of the truth, that they might be saved." In other places 
it is represented as the most fearful of all judicial visitations 
upon the wicked, that God gives them over to believe false- 
hoods. It is the surest of all the " tokens of perdition." They 
have chosen falsehood instead of truth, and clung to it against 
all the admonitions of conscience, and all the influences of 
grace; then God. gives them over to that which they have 



220 Truth the Instrument of Sanctijication. [Serm. xxiii. 

chosen. Having hated the truth and persisted in doing it, 
they are given over to believe a lie. 

From this it is evident why the Apostle was so filled with 
gratitude when he saw the proof that the Thessalonians were 
truly saved and in the way to heaven. " We are bound," he 
says, " to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved 
of the Lord, because God hath, from the beginning, chosen you 
to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of 
the truth." Hence, also, another Apostle closes his epistle with 
the exhortation, " Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." In Him are all the fullness 
of the Godhead, and all the perfections of humanity. To 
know Him is to know both God and man. And herein is the 
reason of that saying of our Lord in his last prayer for his dis- 
ciples : " This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 

Remarks. 1. We see the reasonableness and necessity of 
the demand, which the Word of God everywhere makes, for 
faith in order to salvation. There must be positive faith — 
real belief. Disbelief and unbelief are alike ruinous ; the soul 
cannot but be lost by cherishing either. This will become evi- 
dent by a moment's consideration. 

Unbelief is simply want of confidence in the truth. This 
paralyzes the soul and prevents action in accordance with the 
truth. We never act in earnest without faith. Unbelief hin- 
ders the soul from choosing and walking in the way of life. 
This is the reason why the " fearful and unbelieving " are 
grouped by the Spirit with " the abominable, and murderers, 
and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, 
who shall have their part in the lake which burnetii with fire and 
brimstone: which is the second death." Unbelief simply does 
not choose the way of life, but contentedly remains in the 
broad way that leads to death, and walks on in it with uncon- 
cernedness. It merely neglects the great salvation, and there- 
fore cannot escape ruin. 

But disbelief is something more positive. This not only 
neglects, — it deliberately sets aside the truth as false. It 
chooses untruth for truth, and with intelligent purpose makes 
it a guide and principle of action. The disbeliever purposely, 
and of knowledge, refuses to accept the pointing of the com- 



John xvii. 17.] Truth the Instrument of Sanctification. 221 

pass as the true indicator of direction ; and, accepting his own 
reason, or feelings, in its stead, calls north south and east 
west. He calls the broad way the right one, the narrow way 
wrong : the way to death he calls the way to life. He must, 
therefore, perish. His disbelief is necessarily his ruin. It 
could not by any possibility be otherwise. Of such as he the 
Scriptures declare, " There is a way which seemeth right unto 
a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." 

It is a necessity, therefore, that faith should be made the 
condition and the way of salvation for sinners. Sinners have 
gone out of the way of safety by acting upon falsehood as 
truth ; they can get into that way again only by giving up 
falsehood, and accepting truth as their guide. To say that a 
sinner must believe the gospel or be lost, is to say that it is 
only by accepting and following the guidance of truth that he 
can escape the consequences of trusting to falsehood, and fol- 
lowing it. And to say that without faith it is impossible to 
please God, is to say that God cannot be pleased to see an 
intelligent being believing falsehood for truth, — a moral and 
accountable soul making its way to eternal perdition rather 
than to eternal blessedness. It is to say, also, that God cannot 
be pleased that such a moral and intelligent being should make 
Him a liar. For " he that believe th not God, hath made Him a 
liar ; for he belie veth not the record that God gave of his Son." 
To say that one must believe in Christ or perish, is to say that 
if he refuses the only Saviour he cannot be saved. 

2. That the only safety for Christians, in respect to doctrine 
or life or experience, is in closely following the Word of God. 
Turning from this, they are sure to receive for doctrines the 
commandments of men, human speculations and error, in the 
place of truth. They will come thus to believe and teach lies, 
that others, at least, if not themselves, may be damned. This 
is the fearful tendency of churches and ministers at the present 
time. They want something u fresher " (?) than the Bible, etc. 
They have itching ears ; turn away their ears from the truth, 
and turn unto fables ; ever learning, never able to come to a 
knowledge of the truth. Turning from this, their life will be 
wrong, — offensive to God, because wrong, — barren of good to 
self or others It becomes sickly and sentimental, a reproach 
to the name of Christ. Only " thy word, O God, is a lamp unto 



222 Truth the Instrument of Sanctification. [Serm. xxm. 

my feet, and a light unto my path." Turning from this, re- 
ligious experience becomes a delusion, an ignis fatuus, varying 
with every varying thing in condition of body or mind or cir- 
cumstances. Abiding in this, — abide in God, and they are 
secure as his throne. 



SERMON XXIV. 

THE FACT OF REGENERATION. 



Titus ili- 5. — According to his mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, 
and renewing of the Holy Ghost. 

THERE are certain fundamental doctrines of the gospel 
which are essential to it, and upon an understanding and 
reception of which depends the fact whether or not one is a 
Christian. This is sometimes denied. Indeed it is somewhat 
fashionable in certain circles, and with certain classes, to scout 
the idea that a man's Christianity has anything to do with his 
receiving the doctrines of the gospel ; or that his belief or re- 
jection of them has any effect whatever on his character, or is 
in any manner concerned with his salvation. It is considered 
more learned, more large-minded, more Christian indeed, and 
as evincing a richer culture and a finer and more elevated moral 
sensibility, to count one's religion and his. Christianity, if they 
are esteemed of any value, as something quite apart from and 
independent of his reception or " belief of the truth." Cloth- 
ing the word " doctrines " with technical indefiniteness, and 
dwelling upon it in cant phrases, certain writers and speakers 
claim to demonstrate that the belief of doctrines is not only of 
no avail toward the well-being of men, but that it is even in- 
jurious to them ; tending to make them narrow-minded, heart- 
less, and hypocritical in character, and barren of the fruits of 
Christianity in their lives. . 

It is a sufficient antidote and answer to all this to call to 
mind the fact, that the doctrines of the gospel have no such 
technical isolation from the matter and substance of it as is 
here supposed ; and that they are not, and they never can be- 
come such meaningless formulas as they are claimed to be to 
any who really believe or thoughtfully consider them. On the 
contrary, the doctrines of the gospel in the apprehension of 



224 The Fact of Regeneration. [Serm. xxiv. 

such of them as understand and think, are simply and only the 
teachings of the gospel. They are the statements of truths 
which God has given us in his Word. These teachings cannot 
be disregarded, and these statements disbelieved, without disre- 
garding and disbelieving the truths themselves. You might 
as well talk of disbelieving and casting aside as false the state- 
ment of a mathematical principle, or the narrative of a histori- 
cal fact, and yet claim to accept the principle or believe the 
fact, as to talk of one's rejecting the doctrines of the gospel, 
and yet holding to its principles and believing its facts. To re- 
ject the statement is to reject the principle ; to disbelieve the 
narrative is to deny the facts. The rejection of the doctrines 
of the gospel is, therefore, the rejection of the gospel itself, 
and if the gospel be true, such rejection is necessarily the ac- 
ceptance of error and falsehood in its place. For it is of re- 
vealed truth, as it is of its author : " He that is not for it is 
against it ; he that is not its friend is its enemy." And as a 
man's character and life are what the principles which he really 
holds make them, he that rejects the principles, of which the 
doctrines of Christianity are the declaration, can never have a 
Christian character, nor live a Christian life. Only by the be- 
lief and hearty acceptance of Christian doctrines can either life 
or character be Christian. 

This is in harmony with all the representations of the Scrip- 
tures themselves. They know nothing of a piety that is im- 
pious toward their own teachings. They know nothing of a 
reverential spirit toward God, and of faith in Him connected 
with irreverence toward his Word, and disbelief of its state- 
ments. They know nothing of a godly life in conjunction with 
the rejection of God's Word. 

Look at a few passages showing this — fair specimens of 
many others : " The law," or as it is in the margin of your 
Bibles, " the doctrine of the Lord, is perfect, converting the 
soul." " Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way ? By 
taking heed thereto according to thy word." " Sanctify them 
through thy truth ; thy word is truth." "If ye continue in 
my word then are ye my disciples indeed." " If ye abide in 
me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and 
it shall be done unto you." " God hath from the beginning 
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit, and 



Tit. iii. 5.] The Fact of Regeneration. 225 

belief of the truth." " Ye are born again, not of corruptible 
seed, but by the word of God." And finally, in almost the 
closing sentence of the book of Revelation, we have that sol- 
emn warning against interference, in any way, with the purity 
and completeness of the words in which the Holy Ghost has 
chosen to reveal the mysteries of God: "I testify unto every 
man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If 
any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him 
the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man 
shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, 
God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of 
the holy city, and from the things which are written in this 
book." 

The doctrines then, or, which is the same thing, the teach- 
ings of the gospel, can never be given up by those who hold to 
the gospel itself ; nor can they be neglected and passed over as 
unworthy of careful and earnest study, and reverent acceptance 
by those who would know the will of God and be conformed 
to it. Just to the extent that one holds to these doctrines and 
lives in accordance with them, he is a Christian ; and on the 
other hand, just to the extent that he rejects them and fails to 
live by them, he is not a Christian. He has not the " love of 
the truth," but abides in darkness and in sin. It was to such 
as he is that the Lord said, " He that is of God heareth God's 
words : ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God." 
And again, " If a man love me he will keep my words." 

Among the doctrines or teachings of Revelation, which are 
generally esteemed fundamental in the gospel, is one of those 
which are brought before us in the text : " According to his 
mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and re- 
newing of the Holy Ghost." 

It is the doctrine of regeneration to which I refer. By the 
doctrine of regeneration is meant the instruction which the 
Scriptures contain regarding it. Not what different classes of 
men have said or written about it ; not the speculations in 
which men have indulged concerning it ; nor the theories they 
have invented for it. The doctrine of regeneration, I repeat, 
is the teaching of the Word of God on this subject. 

1. In the first place the Scriptures teach that there is such 
a thing as regeneration. This, none who study the Scriptures 

15 



226 The Fact of Regeneration, [Serm. xxiv. 

can deny or doubt. Allusions to it, and declarations regard- 
ing it, abound in every part of the Bible. They are found in 
the narratives and Psalms and prophetic writings of the Old 
Testament ; and yet more in every part of the New Testament. 
Samuel said of Saul, that the Spirit of the Lord would come 
upon him, and that he should be " turned into another man." 
And it is added, that God gave him " another heart." The 
Psalmist cries in his prayer, " Create in me a clean heart, 
O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Through the 
prophet Ezekiel God said, concerning his people in coming 
days, " I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit 
within you ; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, 
and will give them a heart of flesh ; that they may walk in my 
statutes and keep mine ordinances, and do them : and they 
shall be my people, and I will be their God." This is the most 
common conception of the doctrine in the Old Testament. 
" Verily, verily, I say unto thee," said our Lord to Nicodemus, 
" Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God." " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that 
which is born of the Spirit, is spirit." At another time He 
said in his preaching, "He that heareth my word and be- 
lieveth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall 
not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death unto 
life." " Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind," 
said the Apostle Paul to the Romans, " that ye may prove 
what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." 
And to the Corinthians he says, u The natural man receive th 
not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness 
unto him : neither can he know them, because they are spirit- 
ually discerned." To the Ephesians he said, " You hath he 
quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." To the 
Galatians he wrote, " In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avail- 
eth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Hence 
of believers it is written, " Ye are created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works." And, "If any man be in Christ he is a new 
creature." Believers were born, it is declared, " not of blood, 
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
2. Not only do the Scriptures abound thus with passages 
that distinctly teach the fact of regeneration as a part of the 
process of the salvation of believers, but their whole theory of 



Tit. Hi. 5.] The Fact of Regeneration. 227 

salvation, if we may use such an expression, is based upon and 
involves it. Take away the fact of regeneration from the 
religion of the Scriptures, and its character would be wholly 
changed. It would not be even akin to what it now is. Its 
very beginning would be left out. Its essential, indispensable, 
and invariable characteristic would be wanting. It would cease 
utterly to be the religion of the Bible, and would become that 
of nature, and of mere speculation and theory. He in whom 
such a^ religion alone prevailed would not be a Christian. He 
would not have put off, as the Christian has by his regeneration, 
the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ; 
and been renewed in the spirit of his mind ; and put on the 
new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true 
holiness." And being without such a beginning of salvation 
he would remain still in the " gall of bitterness and in the 
bonds of iniquity." He would not have been born of the 
Spirit ; and so would not be a spiritual but a natural man. 
Being only a natural man he would not apprehend the things 
of the Spirit of God as every Christian does. Having only a 
carnal and not a spiritual mind, as every truly religious man is, 
by Scriptures, supposed to have, his mind, would not be as the 
Christian's is, reconciled to God, but enmity toward him. u For 
the carnal mind is enmity against God, not subject to the law 
of God, neither indeed can be." Not being a new creature by 
regeneration, he would not be in Christ Jesus ; none of the old 
things of sin would have passed away ; nothing in his character 
or in his relations would have become new. And we should 
find it the same with every great and distinctive element of 
true religion in the soul of man, as the Scriptures represent it, — 
it would be wanting in a religion that had not its beginning in 
regeneration ; whereas every such element is by the Scriptures 
supposed and represented as having its origin and vitality in 
regeneration alone. 

3. Again, the great mass of men who have received their 
ideas of true religion from the Bible, and have given any evi- 
dence that their religion was what the Scriptures represent 
true religion to be, have always claimed that they had them- 
selves experienced such a change in their characters and rela- 
tions as that which the Scriptures represent as constituting 
regeneration. In their own consciousness they are aware of 



228 The Fact of Regeneration. [Skrm. xxiv. 

this change. They have experienced it. From the Apostle 
Peter, who declared of himself and all whose religion was in 
accordance with that of the , gospel, that God had begotten 
them again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead ; and Paul who said of himself and all 
who stood with Him as the true worshippers of God according 
to the gospel, " God who commanded the light to shine out of 
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ ; " 
and John who wrote from his own consciousness and appealed 
also to the experience of all Christians, " Every one that loveth 
is born of God and knoweth God ; " and, " We know that we 
have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren ;" 
from these Apostles down through all the ages of Christianity, 
it has been a marked feature in the religion of all who have 
followed the Bible as their guide, and have shown in their spirit 
and lives that their religion was of the kind described and re- 
quired by the gospel, that it has acknowledged, nay more, that 
it has claimed for itself a consciousness of a thorough and radi- 
cal change of moral and spiritual character. Those in whom it 
dwelt have, with most remarkable unanimity united in ascrib- 
ing all that was good in them, and all their hopes of salvation, 
to the fact that they had passed through this supernatural 
change, and by it been made new creatures in Christ Jesus. 
Their innermost life is a constant testimony to themselves that 
they have been " renewed in the spirit and temper of their 
minds." They have the witness in themselves that they have 
been " born of God." And their outward lives have borne 
testimony that could not be gainsaid that they were men of 
truth, and terribly in earnest to know the truth. 

No man can therefore deny the fact of regeneration, the new 
birth of the soul, whereby it is changed from enmity to God, 
to friendship with Him, from a child of wrath to a child of God, 
from a carnal to a spiritual man in Christ Jesus, without deny- 
ing the plainest of Scriptural teachings; falsifying the whole 
theory of religion as it is taught by the sacred writers ; and 
contradicting the concurrent testimony of all the mos^ godly 
and devoted men that have ever borne the Christian name. 

Let me ask each of you, my hearers, if you have experienced 
this great change in your own souls ? If you have, then are 



Tit. iii. 5.] The Fact of Regeneration, 229 

you the children of God. You have passed out of death into 
life. You are among those of whom the Apostle declares they 
cannot sin. They cannot give themselves to its commission. 
They cannot get the consent of their hearts to indulge in it. 
For " why should they that have died to sin, live any longer 
therein ? " They walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 
The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, has made them 
free from the law of sin and death. 

But if you have not had this change in your soul, then are 
you not spiritual but carnal. You are yet in your sins. You 
are not the children of God, but his enemies. You are not 
subject to his law, nor can you be while you remain as you 
are. You have therefore no fitness for heaven. And if you 
die as you are, in your sins, where Christ is you never can 
go. He Himself is saying to you in all tenderness and fidelity, 
" Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God." 



&EKJJHOJN AAV. 

THE NATURE OF REGENERATION. 



Gal. vi. 15. — In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircum- 
cision, but a new creature. 

TT is no uncommon thing for earnest and positive Christians 
-*- to be thought narrow-minded and illiberal. It is hardly 
possible that they should not really appear to be so to unchris- 
tian men, or to men whose faith in Christian truth is but feeble, 
and who feel but slightly the importance of it to their well- 
being, or their responsibility in its acceptance or rejection. 
Truth is one, and not like error, multiform. Therefore he who 
is earnestly concerned to know the truth, and who clings to it 
with positiveness when he has attained to it, will always seem 
narrow in his range of thought and knowledge to those with 
whom speculations and theories and surmises and guesses are 
counted of equal value with truth, and perhaps of greater in- 
terest. One may watch the ever-varying forms of the clouds 
with far more interest than the fixed mountain, etc. They 
will seem to themselves to have a wider and more varied field 
of thought, and to possess the materials of a prof ounder and 
more extended knowledge. They will also seem to themselves 
to be more unfettered in their spirit, more generous in their 
culture, and more genial and large-minded in their temper, 
and in their relations with other men. 

It is perfectly natural that it should be so. They are not 
limited, either in their thoughts or speculations or theories, to 
the truth. They can go beyond it, or contrary to it, or fall 
short of it, according as their fancy or their pleasure dictates. 
Putting the truth upon the same level with mere opinions, 
notions, impressions, fancies, and going from one to the other 
with equal facility, and resting in that which is false and un- 
real as having as substantial a basis of reality as that which is 



Gal. vi. 15.] The Nature of Regeneration. 231 

real and true, they cannot but seem to themselves to be wiser, 
more cultivated, and more intelligent men than he who is so 
limited as is a simple lover and adherent of the truth. 

Being able also to fraternize with so many, and such various 
classes of men, counting them more or less at one with them- 
selves, since they all hold so much in common with one an- 
other, and agree so well in indefiniteness and laxness of views 
as to all limits of truth and of knowledge, they can hardly 
help thinking themselves far more liberal in their feelings and 
character than they suppose he can be who can fraternize with 
none whom he does not consider as holding the truth ; who 
fears to honor that which is, or perchance may be, false, as 
though it were true, and who dares not bid a hearty " God- 
speed " to those who, he thinks, are, or fears that they may 
be, followers of error in the place of truth. 

By its very nature the truth is limiting in its influence upon 
the human mind. It restrains its votaries to itself. It cannot 
admit either fellowship with error or partnership with uncer- 
tainties ; nor will it allow itself to be put on a level with 
guesses and speculations and fancies. He who will know the 
truth, and trust to it, must be willing, not only to accept her 
teachings, but to swear allegiance to her, and forswear all al- 
legiance to other guides and instructors. Or, to vary the figure, 
he who would walk in the way that truth marks out, must be 
willing always to keep to it solely, and to those who also keep 
to it. He cannot walk in other paths, nor keep company with 
those who do walk in them. And this is precisely what our 
Lord teaches us in those momentous words of the Sermon on the 
Mount, '* Enter ye in at the strait gate ; for wide is the gate, 
and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many 
there be which go in thereat : because strait is the gate, and 
narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be 
that find it." 

Of the same character are all his teachings. They go to 
show that they who will be followers of the truth must hold 
themselves to it, and never allow themselves to wander beyond 
its limits. He makes the gospel essentially exclusive in its 
demands upon the confidence of those who accept it. They 
must accept that and reject as false whatever is not in har- 
mony with it. Nay, more, they must accept it as supreme 



232 The Nature of Regeneration. [Serm. xxv. 

and sufficient in all the domain over which it presides. It ad- 
mits no rival, no equal. Its domain is religious truth. This it 
teaches in fullness and sufficiency. It teaches it as far as the 
mind of man, in the present life, can be carried, and denounces 
as false all that is not in accordance with its own utterances. 
" To the law and to the testimony," it says of all who claim 
to teach religious truth, " if they speak not according to this 
Word, it is because there is no light in them." Hence the 
Apostolic command to the lovers of truth is, " Contend ear- 
nestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints." 

This has ever been a marked feature of the worship of the 
true God among men. Like truth, it has been limiting and 
exclusive. They who would worship Jehovah must eschew the 
worship of all other gods. " Thou shalt have no other gods 
besides me : thou shalt worship Jehovah thy God, and Him 
only shalt thou serve." This is his law. To this law He has 
ever held his people ; nor has He counted them his people any 
further than they have obeyed it. 

The worshipper of other gods could, like the advocates of 
error and falsehood, follow his inclinations and fancies, or even 
his caprices. There was nothing in his service of one false 
god that necessarily withheld him from that of other gods. 
He could be as liberal and catholic in his spirit and in his 
worship as he chose, or as his friends desired him to be. The 
Greek could thus go freely from one to another of the thirty 
thousand gods known and served among his people ; and the 
Roman could select any one, or go, at his pleasure, from one to 
another, of the vast concourse who were recognized in the 
Pantheon — the temple of all the gods. Neither was limited 
in his range ; neither was an exclusionist. To each, therefore, 
the worshipper of the one only living and true God always 
seemed narrow-minded, illiberal, uncharitable, bigoted. 

The religion of the New Testament is, in this respect, as in 
all others that are essential, at one with that of the Old Testa- 
ment. It is limiting and exclusive. It restricts its followers 
solely to its own provisions and service, and firmly closes its 
door against all who would bring to it a divided allegiance. 
Its whole spirit is that of its Author : He that is not for me 
is against me ; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. 
It claims for itself to be true, and unhesitatingly denounces 



Gal. vi. 15.] The Nature of Regeneration. 233 

all others as false. Its very nature is such, moreover, that if 
it is true all other religions must be false. If the Saviour to 
whom it points the lost, and in whom it promises them salva- 
tion, be a Saviour at all, He is of necessity the only Saviour, 
and there is " none other name under heaven given among 
men whereby we must be saved." If its terms of salvation 
be true, their announcement excludes the possibility of salva- 
tion upon any other terms. Its single announcement upon this 
point is, " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; 
but he that believeth not shall be damned." " For," it is added 
elsewhere, " without faith it is impossible to please God." 
If the character which it demands, and declares to be neces- 
sary, in order that one should have the favor of God, and enter 
heaven, be necessary, then it is evident, not only from the 
declarations of the New Testament, but from the nature of the 
case itself, that no other character can enjoy the favor of God 
or dwell in heaven. Heaven is impossible, in the nature of 
things, to all others. 

This was what our Lord taught Nicodemus when He said to 
him, so solemnly and with so much dignity and self-repose, 
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God." This is what is taught 
throughout the New Testament as often as it makes any refer- 
ence to the character of the saved in contrast with the charac- 
ter of others, or with that which they themselves possessed 
while they were in an unsaved state. Their character is unique. 
That of no other men is like it ; nor can it become like it with- 
out passing through that change of which the Saviour spake 
to Nicodemus. It must be a character formed " by the wash- 
ing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." 

This is one of the lessons taught us by our text : "In Christ 
Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcis- 
ion, but a new creature." The Apostle's language is a broad 
and earnest assertion of the utter inefficacy and uselessness of 
everything else toward the salvation of the soul, if that change 
has not passed upon it which is here called a new creation, and 
in our text of last Sabbath morning, 1 the washing of regenera- 
tion. From that text I invited you to consider the fact of re- 
generation. It is taught as a fact (a) by definite statements 
] See the preceding Sermon. 



234 The Nature of Regeneration. [Serm. xxv. 

in a large number of passages of Scripture. (5.) It is involved 
in the very theory of the religion of the New Testament. That 
religion cannot have even a beginning without it. (<?.) And 
finally, we saw that the fact of regeneration was and ever had 
been asserted in the religious experiences of the great mass of 
the lovers of the gospel, from the first announcement of it down 
to the present moment. Men of unsullied truth and of great 
righteousness have ever claimed to have experienced this mo- 
mentous change as the beginning of their religion, and their 
whole after lives have borne ample testimony that they were 
men who knew whereof they affirmed, and were incapable of 
speaking falsely. 

I invite your attention now to the nature of regeneration. 
What, according to the Scriptures, is that change which is set 
forth under this and kindred terms in the New Testament ? It 
is not to the results of metaphysical or speculative investigation 
that I wish you to listen ; but solely to the teachings of the 
Word of God. 

1. First, it is a change that affects the whole spiritual being. 
Our Saviour's language is explicit upon this point, as is also 
that of all the sacred writers. " That which is born of the 
flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 
As the natural birth gives to the being born by it the char- 
acter of its natural parents, — the only character which they 
communicate, — that is, one that is carnal or fleshly ; so the 
spiritual birth gives to the soul that is born of the Spirit the 
character of Him by whom it is wrought. It affects all of one's 
being that is wrought upon, and from carnal it becomes spirit- 
ual. Hence the Apostle Paul uniformly speaks of the two con- 
ditions, the one before regeneration and the one that is after it, 
as fundamentally unlike and directly opposed to each other. 
" The carnal mind," he says, " is enmity against God ; for it is 
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then 
they that are in the flesh cannot please God." This is the con- 
dition of a man in his natural or unregenerated state. He is 
after the flesh, and he minds the things of the flesh. His whole 
nature is carnal ; he is carnal in all his walk. " But they that 
are after the Spirit " cease from this, — they " mind the things 
of the Spirit," or spiritual things. So far as the soul is con- 
cerned in becoming spiritual, it has become as unlike what it 
was before as are two totally diverse natures. 



Gal. vi. 15.] The Nature of Regeneration. 235 

Other representations abound, all of which teach this same 
lesson, that the regeneration of the soul thoroughly changes the 
character of that part of our nature which is affected by it. 
Sometimes, for example, it is spoken of as a new creation : " Ye 
are created in Christ Jesus unto good works." " If any man 
be in Christ he is a new creature ; old things are passed away ; 
behold all things are become new ; and all things are of God." 
So, too, the Psalmist prays, " Create in me a clean heart, O 
God, and renew a right spirit within me." 

Not unfrequently this great change is represented as a being 
brought to life from the dead. " You hath he quickened — or 
made alive — who were dead in trespasses and sins." They 
who have experienced it are declared to have " passed out of 
death into life." 

Again, we are taught that by the new birth all who pass 
through the change that constitutes it, are so radically changed 
that they become pleasing in the sight of God, though they 
were before this change, like all unregenerate men, displeasing 
to Him. They become the children of God who were before 
the children of wrath. " Ye were the children of wrath, even 
as others," says the Apostle Paul to such as had felt the power 
of regenerating grace ; " but now ye are fellow-citizens with the 
saints, and of the household of God." And the Apostle John 
says to all such, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God." And 
he says again, kt Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ 
is born of God." He thus becomes a child of God. Hence 
the Apostle Paul says to all believers, " Ye are all the children 
of God by faith in Christ Jesus." " And because ye are sons 
God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, cry- 
ing, Abba, Father." Hence also it is that John says so confi- 
dently of himself and all other believers, contrasting their con- 
dition with that of others, " We know that we are of God, and 
the whole world lieth in wickedness." It is faith in the Son of 
God that changes the relations of men to God, bringing them 
from the condition of enemies into that of friends, and from the 
state of children of the wicked one to be the sons of God ; but 
it is their regeneration alone that brings their natures into har- 
mony with this changed relation, making them inwardly — in 
heart and character — what faith in the Son of God has made 
them outwardly. 



236 The Nature of Regeneration. [Serm. xxv. 

2. Without dwelling longer upon the general nature of the 
change which is wrought in the soul by regeneration, let us 
come to more definite statements. 

1. First, it is a change by which spiritual, divine, and eternal 
things come to be rightly apprehended. 

The Word of God teaches nothing more plainly than that 
the unrenewed soul does not understand, nor rightly conceive 
of these things. Neither the character of God nor that of his 
law is truly apprehended ; nor is the nature of sin or of holi- 
ness, or of heaven or hell, or any of the great mysteries of re- 
demption, nor any of the realities of an eternal and spiritual 
existence. It is a fundamental tenet of the Scriptures through- 
out both the Old Testament and the New, that all men are 
naturally without this discernment and apprehension. By one 
sweeping and unanswerable statement the great Apostle has 
combined and set forth the teachings of all the sacred records 
upon this point : " When they knew God, they glorified Him 
not as God, neither were thankful ; but became vain in their 
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Profess- 
ing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And even as 
they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave 
them over to a reprobate mind," that is, as you have it in the 
margin of your Bibles, " a mind void of judgment." From 
that time to this it has been true of them that, " the natural 
man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God : for they are 
foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, because they 
are spiritually discerned." Therefore the same Apostle says, 
" If our gospel be hid, — as to many it is, — it is hid to them 
that are lost ; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the 
minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious 
gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto 
them. For God who commanded the light to shine out of 
darkness, hath sinned in our hearts to give the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." It 
was in recognition of the same truth that the natural mind does 
not apprehend the things of the spirit of God, but must have 
the power of discernment given by God Himself, that our Sav- 
iour said to his disciples, "It is given unto you to know the 
mysteries of the kingdom of God, but unto others it is not 



Gal. vi. 15.] The Nature of Regeneration. 237 

given." So the Apostle says, " He that is spiritual discerneth 1 
all things, yet he himself is discerned 1 of no man." And an- 
other Apostle says, " Ye have an unction from the Holy One, 
and ye know all things." 

2. Again, the Scriptures teach us that the regeneration of 
the soul is a change by which it comes to love spiritual and 
divine things, — to love God, his law, and his people. The 
heart is indeed the centre upon which the influences of the new 
creation are concentrated. It is upon the heart that the great 
work is wrought. The other parts of our natures are affected 
but indirectly, and as a consequence of the change which is 
wrought upon the heart. It is a result of this change alone 
by which the intellect rightly apprehends spiritual things. 
Before the new creation the prejudices and disinclinations, and 
aversion of an unwilling and a hostile heart, hinder a clear per- 
ception of the things which are disrelished. They are like 
the mists and fogs that rise up between one and some object 
at which he would look, and hinder his vision ; and like the 
miasms that rise with the mists and affect the organ itself 
with disease, though not with total disorganization. In the 
words of the prophet Jeremiah is a full and distinct recog- 
nition of both this resultant effect of the change in the soul, 
and of its direct effect on the heart. Pointing forward to the 
time when the nation and typical Israel should give way, and 
the true people of God, the spiritual Israel, should be revealed 
as alone the real Israel, the Lord said, " Behold the days come, 
that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and 
with the house of Judah : not according to the covenant that I 
made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the 
hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt ; which my cove- 
nant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith 
the Lord : but this shall be the covenant that I will make with 
the house of Israel : After those days, saith the Lord, I will 
put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; 
and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they 
shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man 
his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for they shall all know 
me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the 
Lord." The Apostle quotes this very passage, and makes the 

1 Margin. 



238 The Nature of Regeneration. [Serm. xxv. 

application of it which we do now, to mark the effect of that 
spiritual renewing by which sinners become saints, and those 
who were at enmity with God, and blinded as to his character 
and law, become his friends, and attain to a saving knowledge 
of Him and of his character. 

There is no need of multiplying quotations upon this point. 
Every representation which the Scriptures give of the effect of 
regeneration, is that it changes the heart from enmity to love 
of God ; from disrelish to an affectionate regard for spiritual 
things ; from a spirit of opposition to one of obedience and 
earnest admiration of the law of God ; from dislike and deeply 
seated hatred of the people of God to tender love for them and 
oneness with them. So that John boldly declares, " We know 
that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the 
brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." 
And again, " He that loveth is born of God, and knoweth 
God." 

3. A change by which they come to lead a holy life. 

" Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. Who- 
soever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remain- 
eth in him : and he cannot sin because he is born of God." 



SERMON XXVI. 

THE FRUITS OF REGENERATION. 

♦ 

Romans viii. 6, end. — To be spiritually minded is life and peace. 

EVERY doctrine of the gospel has a direct relation to char- 
acter and life. Not one of them is merely theoretical and 
speculative. They were not revealed, nor can they be rightly 
preached, simply for the intellectual gratification of men ; nor 
merely to satisfy their craving for knowledge ; nor alone as 
mere verbal propositions that men, by the adoption of them, 
may be brought into the mechanical unity of a soulless ortho- 
doxy ; or into outward conformity to some ecclesiastical stand-, 
ard ; or into the profession of a heartless and fruitless religion, 
having, it may be, " the form of godliness, but denying the 
power thereof." 

Much of the reproach that has come upon what are called 
the doctrines of Christianity, and upon the preaching of them, 
has come, partly, no doubt, from misapprehension of what 
Christian doctrines really are ; but far more from the misdi- 
rected efforts of creed-makers, and preachers who preach creeds 
rather than the Bible, to compel the intellectual assent of men 
to bare propositions and formal statements, instead of endeavor- 
ing to bring their hearts and consciences under the influence of 
the truth, and their lives thereby into harmony with the spirit 
and teachings of Christ. Such preaching, however, is not 
really the preaching of the doctrines of the gospel. It is so only 
in name. It has no voice for the soul in its innermost being 
and wants ; and that which does not reach these is no gospel. 
It has in it no message of good tidings from God. Whatever 
may be its form of words, there is a something wanting by 
which all its claim to be the gospel is vitiated unless it has 
in it words for the heart, and a power to reach and satisfy the 
wants and cravings of a soul that desires to be at peace with 
God. 



240 The 'Fruits of Regeneration. [Skkm. xxvi. 

What our Lord said to his disciples when many who had 
been attending upon his ministry ceased to receive and began 
to rebel against the moving truths that He taught, and there- 
fore went back and walked no more with Him, " the words that 
I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life," is applica- 
ble to all the doctrines of Christianity. They are adapted and 
intended to reach the souls of men, to quicken them into life, 
and put them upon the securing and working out of a right- 
eous character. A word that is spirit, or spiritual, is one that is 
suited to the spiritual nature, having power to influence and to 
sustain it in its being and action. So, too, a word which is life 
is a word suited to the necessities of a being who has life. Its 
end and its adaptation is to give life and support, enabling the 
soul that has been made alive from the dead to continue to live 
and to bring forth the fruits of life in all its movements and 
relations. All the doctrines of the gospel are of this character. 
Rightly preached and rightly received, they always have this 
power and are followed by these results. 

This is, however, in direct and most marked contrast with 
the effect of all speculative or merely dogmatic preaching or 
teaching. This accomplishes its whole aim if it has put the 
learner in possession of certain formal statements and made him 
apprehend their literal import, considered as verbal proposi- 
tions, though it has left him without any apprehension what- 
ever of the truth underlying, it may be, those statements, and 
really entering into and constituting the substance of all Chris- 
tian doctrine. The Apostle brings out this contrast and im- 
pliedly condemns this method of preaching and teaching in that 
declaration of his to the Corinthians when he was defending 
his own course as a preacher of the gospel : " Our sufficiency 
is of God, who hath made us able ministers of the New Testa- 
ment, not of the letter, but of the spirit : for the letter killeth, 
but the spirit giveth life." He who is an able minister of the 
New Testament, or a true minister of it, has always a ministry 
of this character. He gives the words and forms of sound 
doctrine indeed, but in doing it he gives also the truth intended 
by the Holy Ghost in ordering that form of words. They will 
not therefore be dead words, but words of power, having the 
truth in them. The truth will be so much more than the mere 
wording of its utterances, and so fill out and energize the word- 



Rom. viii. 6.] The Fruits of Regeneration. 241 

ing, that the ministry of it will no longer be a ministry of the 
letter but of the spirit. Such a ministry can never come from 
the mere studying and arranging of words, or manufacturing of 
propositions. Let those whose power lies in these efforts, and 
whose highest aims are reached when they have succeeded in 
them to their own satisfaction and that of their hearers, — let 
these essay the preaching of the doctrines of Christianity, or 
let them pass judgment upon the character that such preaching 
must assume, and you will at once have before you the sad pic- 
ture which the very phrase doctrinal preaching suggests to so 
many minds, and which is made the object of denunciation by 
so many flippant pens and tongues. Doctrines then cease to 
have any relation to life, or anything to do with the state of 
the heart, the formation of character, or the movements of con- 
science. Then the great truths of Revelation are not set forth 
as truths, every one of which is of God and revealed by Him 
for the salvation and eternal well-being of men. Then the 
character of God, his relations to moral beings, the momentous 
realities of the judgment and eternity, the provisions and offers 
of the gospel, may indeed be talked about and discussed, as a 
theorist may discuss anything that has to do with his theory, 
but with no living interests of any human being ; but they will 
not be so spoken of and so presented as to be real truths for the 
soul, upon the reception of which, and the manner in which they 
are treated, hang all the eternal destinies of those who hear. 
Then the great commands and requirements of the gospel may 
be mechanically handled and methodically arranged, and un- 
concernedly disposed of by both preacher and hearer. But 
they will not be those intensely living and soul stirring com- 
mands of which the Psalmist said, " Thy commandment is 
exceeding broad ; " and whose power the Apostle felt when he 
wrote, " When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 
And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to 
be unto death." In like manner, the Scriptural declarations 
regarding the traits of character that belong to different classes 
of men, and the fruit which will be brought forth in their lives, 
these will, in such a ministry, be nominally treated upon, per- 
haps, and very systematically arranged and classified, as much 
so, and as heartlessly, as one would arrange and classify the 
fosils and remains of extinct species of animals. But these 

16 



242 The Fruits of Regeneration. [Skrm. xxvi. 

traits of character and these fruits of life are not then so pre- 
sented and urged upon the attention and upon the consciences 
of men that each one is compelled to know what manner of 
man he is, and is incited to enter upon the work of making 
right that which is wrong, and with all earnestness strengthen- 
ing and perfecting that which is already right. Those doctrines 
of Christianity which pertain to character and living always 
have this power upon those who listen to them. They will 
have either the effect which the Lord's words had upon his dis- 
ciples when He said, " Verily, verily, I say unto you that one of 
you shall betray me ; and they all began to inquire, Lord is it 
I ? Is it I ? " or that Nathan's parable had upon David, and 
will carry to the consciences of those who heed what they hear, 
the fearful, or it may be the joyous conviction, " Thou art the 



man 



! " 



Such, I think we have seen, is the character of the doctrine 
of regeneration. The consideration of it as a revealed fact, put 
us upon the inquiry, — with some of us it was a most anxious 
inquiry, — whether or not that great fact had been realized in 
us. The consideration of the nature of regeneration stimulated 
this inquiry still further, and deepened the anxiety which the 
consideration of the fact had awakened within us. Considera- 
tions of these things have in times past, if they do not now, 
filled some of us with such thoughts and emotions that as we 
look back upon them, the words that we sometimes sing are 
none too strong to express our state of mind, being — 

"My soul in bonds of guilt I found, 

And knew not where to go : 
One solemn truth increased my pain, 
The sinner must be born again, 

Or sink to endless woe." 

The passage which I have read for my text, "To be spirit- 
ually minded is life and peace," invites our thoughts again to 
this great doctrine. These words bring before our minds for 
consideration, the Fruits of Regeneration. 

The spiritual mind is the regenerated mind, as the carnal or 
fleshly mind is that which is unregenerated. The one is born 
of the flesh, and is therefore, as the Saviour Himself declares, 
flesh. It is not spirit. It is carnal, not spiritual. To be thus 
minded, the Apostle tells us, in the first clause of the verse, is 



Rom. viii. 6.] The Fruits of Regeneration, 243 

death. Death is the legitimate fruit which it bears. To be 
carnally minded is necessarily a state of death, and it can lead 
to nothing but death in the future. For to be carnally minded 
is to have a sin-loving heart, a sin-moulded character, and a 
sin-directed life ; and as sin when it is finished is death to the 
soul in which it has its development, so such a state of mind 
and heart and life must, of necessity, — it is impossible that it 
should not, — have death as its ever-springing and ever-ripen- 
ing fruit. 

But the other is born of the Spirit, and is, therefore, accord- 
ing to the same divine Word, spirit. It partakes of the nature 
of Him by whom it has been begotten, and is spiritual. It is 
not fleshly. Its desires and movements are all in harmony 
with its nature, and with the nature of its Renewer. For they 
that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit. It 
is in perfect accordance with their nature to do so. It is thus 
that they are " spiritually-minded." This is their true state, 
the real condition into which they have been brought by their 
new birth. And what the text asserts is, that the natural and 
necessary result, the legitimate and invariable fruit of being in 
this state, is life and peace. It is this, and it cannot but be 
this. To a greater or less extent every regenerate man will 
have life and peace as the constant and ever-yielded fruit of his 
regeneration. 

1. In the first place, he will have life. He will not be dead. 
This term life doubtless refers very prominently to the state 
and relationship of the renewed soul. It is no longer under 
the displeasure and wrath of God. It is no longer alienated 
from Him and an enemy to holiness. It is restored to com- 
munion and fellowship with God, and to the love of righteous- 
ness. This is its condition. It is that of a child of God both 
in its relations and in its disposition ; and this is a condition 
of life as distinguished from one of deadness in trespasses and 
sins. 

But life is not solely a state or condition and relation of the 
soul. It is this, but it is something more than this. It is ac- 
tivity. Life is an active principle. It is ever seeking to assert 
itself in actions. It is so in natural life ; the Scriptures teach 
us that it is so in spiritual life. It will act, and when it acts it 
will act in accordance with its own nature. 



244 The Fruits of Regeneration. [Skrm. xxvi. 

The Word of God does not anywhere countenance the idea 
that a living soul, or a renewed nature, can be inactive and 
inoperative. It is a sentiment altogether alien to the Scrip- 
tural method of conceiving and representing the regenerate 
character, that one who has been born of God ever comes into 
a state that he does not for any great length of time use his 
regenerated powers, and, feeling the quickening and impelling 
influences of a new life, seek to give it expression in the con- 
duct. Every attentive reader of the Bible is impressed invol- 
untarily with the incongruity of such a sentiment, or suppo- 
sition even. It is of spiritual as of animal life, there are always 
certain and invariable evidences of its presence. The natural 
heart will beat, the blood will circulate, the lungs will breathe, 
even if there are no voluntary movements of the body. Sleep 
itself cannot check these necessary functions of animal life. It 
is the same with the life of God in the soul. Its heart will 
beat. Love, however feeble it is, will act, and its throbbings 
will project the desires and aspirations of the soul towards God 
and heaven. It will take in to sustain its vitality something, 
however small it may be, of the love and mercy and grace of 
God which are diffused around it, as the air is about the breath- 
ing body. These things it will do, though it may be greatly 
depressed, and sadly deficient in the putting forth of direct and 
conscious energies in doing the good works for which it was cre- 
ated anew in Christ Jesus. As a beating heart and breathing 
lungs are the necessary accompaniment and evidence of bodily 
life, so is a loving heart — loving towards God and towards men 
— and a desiring and aspiring spirit, necessary accompaniments 
and evidences of the life of the soul. " Every one that loveth," 
says the beloved disciple, " is born of God and knoweth God. 
He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." Where 
there is no love there is no life ; and the very nature of love is 
to desire communion with its object, and to go out from self to 
be with and enjoy it. Hence the same disciple says unequiv- 
ocally, " He that loveth not his brother abide th in death." 
And again, " Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his 
brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion 
from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ? " 

Combining the teachings of the Scriptures upon this subject, 
they will be found to set forth and maintain as unquestionable, 



Rom. viii. 6.] The Fruits of Regeneration. 245 

these two principles, namely : first, he that is born of God will 
love God. His new birth makes him a child of God, — gives him 
the true spirit of a child towards its father, which is a spirit of 
reverence, of trust, of love, and of obedience. Love is itself 
the spirit of obedience. Hence the Saviour says, "If a man 
love me he will keep my words." It is the nature of love to 
obey. It cannot but obey. The moment that the soul turns 
itself to disobedience of God, it is no longer the love of God 
by which it is moved. Something else, and something antag- 
onistic to love and to God has taken the place of love. 

The second principle which a grouping of the teachings of 
the Bible upon this subject will show, is that he who has been 
born of God will be a man of righteousness and benevolence 
towards his fellow men. If he has been born of God he has 
been born into these traits of the divine character. He cannot 
love unrighteousness, nor can he get the consent of his will 
and conscience to practice it towards any with whom he has to 
do. He cannot be hard-hearted and selfish. The love towards 
God and towards men which is the very life of a regenerate 
soul, and the absence of which constitutes in a great measure 
its carnality and death, and makes its regeneration necessary, 
this love must act, and acting will, as love always does, draw 
the soul out from itself, and fill it with kindly desires and mer- 
ciful feelings and purposes towards others. So far as there is 
hardness, unkindness, stinginess, unmercifulness, in any man's 
soul, so far he is carnal and not spiritual. And if these be the 
prevailing elements of his character, then he is yet in the gall 
of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. The love of God is 
not in him. He is not born of God. For whatsoever is born 
of God overcome th the world. 

The grand characteristic of regeneration as it affects the life 
is set forth by the Apostle in his declaration to the converted 
Ephesians: "Ye are the workmanship of God," — and the 
Apostle is here speaking of regenerate men, — " created in 
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained 
that we should walk in them." " He hath chosen us in Christ, 
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, 
and without blame before Him in love." 

2. Secondly, there is peace. To be spiritually minded is 
life and peace. This term has direct reference to the condition 



246 The Fruits of Regeneration. [Serm. xxvi. 

of the heart, the disposition and feelings of the soul. It is at 
peace. This must be the case so far as there is love. The 
heart that is filled with love is filled with peace. Perfect love 
casteth out all fear. Perfect love brings the whole soul into 
conscious reconciliation with God. So far as the love, which 
regeneration invariably and necessarily begets in the soul, per- 
vades the soul, so far there is peace. 

But this term is of wider signification than it has in ordi- 
nary discourse. It applies to the whole moral and spiritual 
being. It indicates that all the faculties of the soul are health- 
ful, and that the whole spiritual nature is acting harmoniously. 
Nothing in the soul or in its action is working adversely to its 
own interests or the interests of any other being. 

This, too, is a legitimate fruit of love, or, which is the same 
thing, of regeneration. The regenerate soul is born out of its 
deadness in trespasses and sins, into the life of holiness, and 
holiness of necessity brings it into harmony with its own well- 
being and with that of every other creature. 

Hence the Apostle Paul, summing up the elements of the 
spiritual character, says, " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
temperance. " 

The possession of such a disposition and temper of mind is 
the possession of peace. And this it is, says the Apostle, to 
be spiritually minded. This is the fruit of the spiritual mind. 



SERMON XXVII. 

WHAT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT? 



Romans xv. 13. — That ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. 



"nnHE world by wisdom knew not God." Forty 
J- were given it to trv the experiment of coming; t< 



centuries 
were given it to try the experiment of coming to a knowl- 
edge of Him by this means. It made the attempt and failed. 
During all this time it had made no progress, but had, from 
generation to generation, become darker and more- hopeless. 

Yet the human intellect had been cultivated, in some of the 
choicest natural men of the race, to as high a point as it has 
ever been carried. Some of the fruits of this cultivation re- 
main, even till now, the masterpieces of thought; and modern 
education consists in no small degree in the study of them. 
Some of the men of that experimental period are to-day the 
guides of the best intellect of the world in some of the darkest, 
most difficult, and most important fields of thought and inquiry. 
The profoundest thinkers of modern times gladly sit at their 
feet, and listen with admiration and reverence to their wisdom. 
No human thinking has ever yet surpassed theirs for compre- 
hensiveness and subtlety. They were masters both of thought 
and argument. 

It was not for want of intellect, therefore, that the world 
failed to find out God by its wisdom. It can be safely asserted 
that if human wisdom, unaided by direct revelation, could at- 
tain to the knowledge of God, it would have been done by 
these men of giant intellect and far reaching thought. No one 
who knows whereof he affirms would risk the assertion that 
where they failed in any matter dependent upon the unaided 
human reason, any who come after them would succeed. 

Nor was the world's failure to come to a knowledge of God 
due alone to the absence of manifestations and proofs of his 
existence, and some of his attributes. The works of the Crea- 



248 What is the Holy Spirit f [Serm. xxvii. 

tor would have revealed Him with sufficient clearness, in these 
respects, at least, if any had been found to regard the revela- 
tion : " For the invisible things of Him from the creation of 
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." 

Indeed, this revelation was so distinct that the blindest could 
not exclude from their minds all the light that was reflected 
upon them. The existence and attributes of a Supreme Being 
were apprehended to some extent, as is seen by their idolatry ; 
but the image of Him which their minds received was so dis- 
torted and blurred that it was not an image of the true God. 
It did not give them a knowledge of Him. They remained in 
dark and dismal ignorance in the midst of most glorious revela- 
tions. And this is the inspired explanation of it : " They did 
not like to retain the knowledge of God," which even this 
revelation gave them, "therefore they became vain in their 
imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened." 

But there is much that enters into the true idea of the knowl- 
edge of God which the works of creation do not reveal. These 
cannot reveal in fullness the divine mind and heart. What 
these are, together with the nature of God and the mode of 
his existence, must of necessity be made known by direct 
revelation, or else all our notions regarding them must be spec- 
ulative only ; mere guesses, at best, but not knowledge. The 
history of the world demonstrates this. Where the Word of 
God has not been known, there has never been anything like a 
perfect outline drawn of the divine character and mode of ex- 
istence as they are set forth by the Scriptures, and as they are 
almost universally accepted as true wherever the Bible has 
become the recognized revelation of God to men. And not 
only so, not only has there been no such distinct outline of his 
character and the mode of his existence, but there has been no 
sense of certainty in regard to the notions that were broached 
or entertained. The few thoughts of the character of God and 
the mode of his existence that were indulged, were not fixed in 
the mind and sure, so as to become to it more than speculative 
and theoretical. They were not knowledge. 

Such is the lesson taught us by the histoiy of this world 
And yet our times are noted for the boldness and assurance 
with which men decry both the fact and the necessity of a 



Rom. xv. 13.] What is the Holy Spirit f 249 

written revelation. It is claimed that the world does, by its 
wisdom, know God. But when we come to examine the knowl- 
edge which these men claim to have attained without the aid 
of the written Word, two suggestive facts become apparent. 
In the first place, we find most of the elements of this knowl- 
edge manifestly drawn directly from the Bible itself. The 
speculators have lived under the full blaze of the sun of re- 
vealed truth all their lives. They have been taught it at their 
mother's knees, they have heard it in their father's prayers, 
and have had all their education where the Bible has infused 
its influences into every department of government, and of civil 
and social life. From these sources they have, sensibly or in- 
sensibly, imbibed the true ideas of God as his Word reveals 
them ; and then turning their backs upon that Word, and deny- 
ing its authority and worth, they have set about the work of 
learning God, and declaring Him, from the results of what they 
vainly fancy to be independent thought and investigation. 
Recalling the lessons of earlier years, and acting upon the hints 
constantly furnished from the Bible in an indirect way through 
thousands of channels that never can be closed against any class 
of men in a Christian community, they pride themselves upon 
these recalled and suggested thoughts as though they were the 
fruit of thoroughly independent, unaided, and original think- 
ing. The second fact that we find is this : In all the elements 
of that which these men claim to be a knowledge of God, the 
moment they depart from the teachings of the Bible we dis- 
cover a reproduction, not only of the speculations and guesses of 
the great minds of the past, but of their uncertainty and want 
of confidence also. That which is taken for truth soon comes 
to be doubted by the theorizer himself ; and is supplemented, 
if not by himself, certainly by others, with other and equally 
plausible notions ; these to be as soon suspected, and as soon 
suplemented, by still others of like character and destiny. 
• The only fair test of the powers of human wisdom to gain 
a knowledge of God without a written revelation is to take it 
where no written revelation has ever shed its light. Then the 
test will be of some value. What you find there will be the 
real results of this wisdom acting alone. On the other hand it 
is but fair, nay, you are compelled on every principle of right 
reasoning, to give the Word of God credit for all that is higher 



250 What is the Holy Spirit? [Serm. xxvii. 

and purer and better in the knowledge of men who have come 
either directly or indirectly into contact with a written Revela- 
tion. They cannot legitimately claim for their own wisdom 
the origination or discovery of one, not even the least of these 
higher and better elements. It is a species of dishonorable 
theft for them to attempt it. In reading or listening to the 
results of human speculation and reasoning in regard to the 
being and character of God, or the mode of his existence, this 
ought to be remembered. Measured by this test, much of what 
passes for profundity and independent originality will be at 
once shorn of its glory. Give back to the Bible all that has 
been surreptitiously taken from it by men claiming to have no 
need of its teachings in order to the learning of God and divine 
things, and their nakedness will become pitiable. The sages 
of the past who knew not, and confessed that they could not 
know these things, will tower above them in everything that 
goes to make up manhood and fruitfulness of intellect. 

We are brought then to this conclusion, that we are depend- 
ent wholly upon the Scriptures for any full and satisfying 
knowledge of God. From this source alone do we learn what 
God is, and the method of his existence. And inasmuch as 
the Scriptures alone teach those things concerning God which 
make our knowledge of Him different from and better than 
were the speculations and guesses and unsustained and unsat- 
isfying fancies regarding Him, which were the highest attain- 
ments of men who had the highest intellectual life but had no 
Bible, we are shut up to the necessity of acknowledging it to 
be a special divine revelation upon this point, and of giving it 
the place of an infallible teacher and an absolute authority. 
We cannot, without the grossest inconsistency, either curtail or 
supplement its instructions. We must take them as they are 
and accept them in faith whenever they go beyond our present 
powers of comprehension. When they tell me directly or im- 
pliedly what God is, and how He exists, I cannot gainsay what 
they assert nor correct their statements. I know, indeed, that 
if they do reveal God to me they must reveal Him in mystery. 
The revelation of Him must of necessity be a revelation in 
mystery. Every term which they employ to give me knowl 
edge must contain vastly more that I cannot understand than 
that I can. To the finite mind God must ever be as the sea is 



Rom. xv. 13.] What is the Holy Spirit f 251 

to the natural eye. You can look upon it ; it is revealed to 
you as you stand upon its shore ; but how much more of the 
unknown than of the revealed is suggested to you by the view. 
Your sight cannot penetrate its mysterious depths, nor take in 
the immensity of its expanse. That which is seen, while it 
gives the mind clear and truthful conceptions, as far as it goes, 
yet suggests and implies infinitely more that cannot be seen, 
but which must be received on testimony. It is so with the 
revelations which the Scriptures make of God. They give us 
clear and truthful views of Him as far as our minds can grasp 
them ; but in giving these they suggest and imply, and, indeed, 
assert vastly more that must be received on their testimony 
alone. Anything that claimed to be a revelation of God that 
did not thus suggest and imply, and assert infinitely more than 
the human mind could fully comprehend, would by this very 
failure convict itself of imposture and pretense. 

I have been led into this train of reflection, my hearers, by 
the study of the last few words of our text : "by the power of 
the Holy Ghost." As we look into the Scriptures we find that 
the great and fundamental idea which they reveal and con- 
stantly insist upon is, that God is One. There is no other God 
beside Him. This fact Nature herself would doubtless teach, 
if her laws and phenomena were perfectly understood by men. 
But so long as they are but partially and imperfectly known, 
it is by no means clear that the unity of God could be learned 
from them. As a matter of fact the world never did come to 
a clear and positive knowledge of this truth from the study of 
nature alone, or by the exercise of unaided reason. And from 
the emphasis with which it was asserted to the people chosen 
to be the depositaries of the oracles of God, and the constant 
repetition of it, and the sedulous guarding of it lest that people 
should forget or fail to recognize it, it would seem that God 
thought the distinct revelation of it to be imperative. Hence 
from first to last of the volume of Revelation this great truth 
stands out with special prominence : " There is but one God." 

But how does He exist ? Here we encounter the mystery 
necessary in the revelation of the Infinite One. God is one. 
He is one God. The only living and true God ; and besides 
Him there is no other. But this one God is threefold in his 
mode of existence. The Scriptures reveal Him to us as the 



252 What is the Holy Spirit? [Serm. xxvn. 

Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God. The revela- 
tion is distinct and cannot be misunderstood ; but the mystery 
involved in the revelation is deeper than we can fathom, wider 
than we can measure. The one God, the one only living and 
true God, is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost ! 

In the three sermons on the Sabbath mornings preceding this 
we have given our attention to the doctrine of Regeneration. 
Our Saviour calls this a being " born of the Spirit." This has 
led us to think more or less of this divine agent. My purpose 
now is to bring before you some of the teachings of the Scrip- 
ture sconcerning Him. And I do this to help you to realize in 
yourselves the Apostolic wish, " That ye may abound in hope 
through the power of the Holy Ghost." As in the sermons 
on Regeneration so in these, let us lay aside speculation and 
theory, and give our minds with submissiveness and docility to 
the revelations of the inspired record itself. 

What then do the Scriptures reveal respecting the Holy 
Spirit ? 

1. They reveal the fact that there is a Being so named, — 
there is a Holy Spirit. He is a Being distinct from all other 
beings. The Scriptures thus speak of Him, using the word 
Holy Spirit and its equivalents in numerous instances, in sucli 
a way as that it cannot by any possibility be made to describe 
anything but a distinct Being. Their use of the word, in these 
instances, is not as it is in others, descriptive of the temper or 
disposition of the mind of an intelligent being, whether God 
or man. It is impossible to take the word in this sense in 
many passages of the Scriptures, and retain any intelligible 
meaning whatever. This will appear as we advance. The 
passages which we shall quote under another head will be con- 
clusive upon this point, and I need not detain you with a. re- 
cital of them here. 

2. The Holy Spirit is a person. The word person is the 
best word that we have by which to indicate the distinction 
that the Scriptures make known regarding the Godhead, in 
teaching us that there is in it the Father, and the Son, and tl\e 
Holy Ghost. Each of these is spoken of as distinct from the 
other, and all together constitute the mysterious trinity in 
unity in the revealed mode of the divine existence. 

A person is one who has intelligence, will, affections, and all 



Rom. xv. 13.] What is the Holy Spirit? 253 

the qualities necessary to constitute a conscious moral agent. 
That, which has these in himself is a person. It is impossible 
for us* to conceive of it otherwise than as such. If, therefore, 
the Scriptures represent the Holy Spirit as possessed of these 
qualities, they intend that we should thus conceive of Him. 
They do thus represent Him to us. The plain, unforced mean- 
ing of very many passages makes this impression upon the 
mind; and that impression cannot be resisted without doing 
manifest violence to the words of inspiration. They speak of 
Him in many relations as thinking, knowing, feeling, acting. 
He does this independently, as Himself a distinct thinking, 
knowing, feeling, acting agent. 

Let me ask your attention to a few of these passages ; and, as 
I read them, bear it in mind that the Scriptures were given for 
the express purpose of revealing God to us, and not of mislead- 
ing us in regard to anything that pertains to Him : 1 " Whoso- 
ever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be for- 
given him ; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it 
shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the 
world to come." In this passage you perceive that the Holy 
Ghost is spoken of as a distinct Being, as much so as the Son of 
man is. He can be spoken against, sinned against, blasphemed. 
The natural and obvious implication of the words is that as the 
Son of man is a person of thought, and knowledge, and feeling, 
and will, so is also the Holy Spirit. 

" But when they shall lead you and deliver you up, take no 
thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye pre- 
meditate : but whatsoever is given you in that hour, that speak 
ye : for it is not ye that speak but the Holy Ghost." (Mark.) 

" The Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye 
ought to say." 

" But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 
Father will send in my name, He shall teach ye all things and 
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said 
unto you." (John.) They spake as the Spirit gave them ut- 
terance. 

" But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart 

i I know that it is common with a large class of writers to speak contemptu- 
ously of proof texts. Few do this, however, who show reverence for the Bible or 
bow unquestioning-lj to its authority. 



254 What is the Holy Spirit? [Serm. xxvn. 

to lie to the Holy Ghost ? " (Acts.) " So they being sent 
forth by the Holy Ghost." (Acts.) " It seemed good to the 
Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden. " 
(Acts.) They " were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach 
the Word in Asia." (Acts.) 

" Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock 
over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers." 
(Acts.) 

" And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby [or by 
whom] ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." (Eph.) 

" The Spirit itself [Himself] beareth witness with our 
spirit that we are the children of God." 

" Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for we 
know not what we should pray for as we ought ; but the Spirit 
itself [Himself] maketh intercession for us, with groanings 
which cannot be uttered." He maketh intercession for the 
saints according to the Word of God. 

It is needless to multiply quotations, as we might do almost 
indefinitely. These are fair examples of a multitude of others, 
— more than enough to teach us that the Scriptures clearly 
set forth the personality of the Holy Spirit. All the attributes 
necessary to constitute a person are ascribed to Him. Acts 
which none but a personal agent could perform are ascribed to 
Him. Feelings which none but a personal subject could expe- 
rience are ascribed to Him. He is, therefore, a person. 

3. The Holy Spirit is God. The things that are said of Him 
could be said of no other. The relationship which He is rep- 
resented as sustaining to the Father shows his deity. He is 
distinctly called God. On each of these points the light is 
clear and convincing. Above all difficulties which our minds 
encounter in endeavoring to comprehend the mystery involved 
in the revelation of the mode of the divine existence, the rev- 
elation itself of the deity of the Spirit comes in and holds us 
to an acknowledgment of it. We must deny the revelation or 
admit the deity of the Spirit. 

A few passages to sustain each of the points I have specified 
will suffice. 

First, What our Saviour says of the sin against the Holy 
Ghost could be said of none other than God. To make Him 
less than God makes the Saviour's words unnatural, and out 



Rom. xv. 13.] Wliat is the Holy Spirit ? 255 

of harmony with all the teachings of the Scriptures regarding 
the character of sin and the conditions of forgiveness. The 
same is true of what the Redeemer said to his Apostles re- 
garding the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, who should 
come and teach them, as He had done, with infallible cer- 
tainty, all that they would need to know as witnesses of the 
truth, and the founders of the Church of Christ. The same 
is true of what He said of the Comforter's remaining forever 
with his disciples. Wherever they are, that Comforter is with 
them. He is omnipresent, therefore. He knows all the wants 
and trials of all the saints in all places. He is therefore om- 
niscient. These things can be said of none other but God Him- 
self. 

As to the relation which the Holy Spirit sustains to the 
Father and the Son, we need notice nothing beyond the bap- 
tismal formula and the Apostolic benedictions : '.' Go ye there- 
fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

" The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all." 

In this formula and benediction there is a grouping that for- 
bids the thought of inferiority in either the Son or the Spirit. 
Nothing can justify such grouping, to our apprehension, of the 
majesty and unapproachableness of God, or harmonize it with 
the views of the divine glory which the Scriptures so clearly 
teach, except the recognition of the mystery of the revelation 
itself that sets before us for our faith to accept, — the trinity 
in unity. 

I add but one other passage, showing that the Holy Spirit 
is directly and unequivocally called God: " Why hath Satan 
filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost ? " " Thou hast not 
lied unto men, but unto God." 

Remarks. 1. This is the Agent by whom the salvation that 
Christ came into the world to make possible, is wrought in in- 
dividual souls. The Holy Spirit alone regenerates them. They 
are born of the Spirit if they ever pass out of a carnal into a 
spiritual state. If they are ever saved it is by the washing of 
water and the renewal of the Holy Ghost. 

2. This is the Being that is resisted by wicked men when 
they refuse to yield to the claims of Christ and the truth upon 
them. 



256 What is the Holy Spirit? [Serm. xxvn. 

Hence Stephen's charge against his persecutors was, " Ye 
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always 
resist the Holy Ghost : as your fathers did, so do ye." 

This resistance is a most solemn and fearful matter. Carried 
to a certain pitch, there is no forgiveness, neither in this world 
nor in the world to come. 

Oh, how careful ought those to be in their conduct towards 
an Agent on whose gracious influences their eternal well-being 
is solely suspended ! 

3. This Agent of renewal and Sanctifier and Intercessor of 
the saints, is sent to men as the Son was sent, in answer to 
prayer. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father 
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." " Ask, and ye 
shall receive." 

4. The favor of this Agent, on whom the very life of the 
soul depends, ought to be carefully cherished by the people of 
God. 

He cannot and will not dwell with cherished sin. He is 
grieved when his people sin. Their conduct should be a con- 
stant utterance of David's prayer, " Take not thy Holy Spirit 
from me." 



SERMON XXVIII. 

THE CONVINCING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



John xvi. 8, in part. — He will reprove the world of sin. 

THE person of whom the Saviour here speaks is the Holy 
Spirit. He was to come into this world under new and 
peculiar circumstances after Christ should have ascended to 
heaven. Not that He was ever wholly absent from the earth, 
or ever ceased to dwell with men. But his being with men be- 
fore the day of Christ's ascension and his ministering to their 
holiness and salvation, was with this day in prospect. An 
atonement was to be made and He who was to make it was to 
be exalted thereafter a prince and a Saviour, and sit upon the 
throne of God, and reign over all things for the redemption of 
his people. In anticipation of this, patriarchs and prophets and 
all holy men of old lived in the gospel day by faith ; and they 
were dealt with in a measure as though the atonement were 
already made. For in the mind and purpose of God all was 
accomplished, and He could in consequence even then be just, 
justifying the guilty. The way was therefore open for the 
Holy Spirit to work among men, and He did work in their 
hearts, so that multitudes were brought " to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth." 

But when Christ had in fact as well as in purpose finished 
his work upon the earth, and ascended to the Mediator's throne, 
it was no longer an atonement to be made that was preached, 
but an atonement completed. A Saviour was then revealed, not 
by the dim rays of prophetic light, but by the full shining of 
historic truth. Men might then hope to be saved, not because 
they expected a deliverer in coining time, but because a De- 
liverer had already appeared and was in the full prosecution of 
his mighty work. It was with this atonement already made, 
and this Saviour already revealed, that the Holy Spirit was now 

17 



258 The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. [Serm. xxviii. 

given. He henceforth wrought among and upon men, by a 
perfected, and not a prophetic plan of salvation. The means 
by which He influences the hearts of men since the ascension 
of Christ are immensely more potent ; the way by which He 
aproaches them far more direct and effective. Hence it was in 
some sort a new coming of the Spirit, when He began to com- 
fort the people of God in the place of an already manifested 
Saviour ; to take of the things of that Saviour and show them 
unto his friends, and to make all his influences centre upon 
Him as the now living, exalted, and reigning Messiah. It was 
in these circumstances He began, and has ever since been 
accomplishing the words of Jesus which we are considering, 
— " He shall reprove the world of sin." 

The term " world," in this passage, evidently refers to such 
as are not the friends of God ; the impenitent men of the world. 
This will be plain if we notice the use of the word in a few 
other passages. In the seventh verse of the seventh chapter of 
this book, our Lord says to his unbelieving brethren, " The 
world cannot hate you ; but me it hateth because I testify of 
it, that the works thereof are evil." In the eighteenth verse 
of the fifteenth chapter, He says to his disciples, " If the 
world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." 
The same view is sustained by comparing the text with the 
thirteenth verse of this chapter. In our text Jesus says, 
" The Holy Spirit will reprove the world of sin ; " but, in the 
thirteenth verse, " He will guide you into all the truth." The 
disciples of Christ, or the friends of God, are put into contrast 
with the world. They then are the world who are not the 
friends of God or the disciples of Christ. 

The word " reprove " requires a moment's attention, in order 
to a proper understanding of the text. Commonly, the word 
means " to blame, to censure ; " but more literally " to manifest 
a wrong by proof, to convince of wrong." This is, without 
doubt, its meaning here, — " He will convince the world of 
sin." The margins of our Bibles give convince in the place 
of reprove, and the whole context, and kindred and illustrative 
portions of the Scriptures, clearly show that convince is the 
more suitable word to be here employed. 

The teaching of the text is then that one of the offices of the 
Holy Spirit on earth is to convince impenitent men of their 



John xvi. 8.] The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. 259 

sins. Our Lord might have had immediate reference here to 
something less general than this statement implies. He might 
have referred specially to the sin of those who had rejected 
Him during his minister in the flesh, who were, many of them, 
convinced of their guilt, in this particular, on the day of Pen- 
tecost, when the favor of God towards Jesus was manifested, 
and He was declared, by his resurrection, to be the Son of God, 
and by the miraculous powers with which He endowed his dis- 
ciples was shown to be all that He had claimed for Himself 
while He was on earth. Men believed not on Him while He 
was visibly with them ; but when they saw, at the coming of 
the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, such proofs of the divinity 
of his mission, conviction of their guilt, in disbelieving, was 
visited upon their minds. The Holy Ghost thus convinced 
them of sin because of their unbelief. 

But whether or not this was the special application of the 
words, as our Lord uttered them, they yet announce a general 
and most important truth. They fully imply that, as we have 
said, it is the office of the Holy Spirit to convince impenitent 
men of sin while the gospel of a risen and glorified Saviour 
is preached. It is only by virtue of this his general office that 
the Saviour makes the special application, if it be such, which 
some suppose is made in the text. We are safe, therefore, in 
giving these words their most extended application, to men of 
all times and all places, who hear of Christ, and are made 
conscious that they are sinners against God, and need such an 
one as God has provided in Christ to save them from condem- 
nation. 

We are not under the necessity, however, of understanding 
from the text that every kind and degree of conviction of sin 
which men have, are from the influence of the Holy Spirit upon 
them. The conviction here spoken of, let it be remarked, is 
in view of gospel truth. It is of sin as in some sort committed 
against the Lord Jesus Christ. For in the following verse it is 
said by way of explanation, u He shall convince the world of 
sin because they believe not on me." Evangelical conviction 
always has in it this element, a reference to Christ. In this, as 
in everything else, there must be this reference, or there is no 
gospel, nothing that can save the soul ; nothing that leads it to 
a Saviour ; nothing that is radically and permanently beneficial. 



260 The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. LSekm. xxviii 

But it is for the radical and permanent benefit, even the salva- 
tion of lost sinners, that the Holy Ghost moves upon their minds. 
All that He does is with this end in view. For this He takes 
of the things of Christ the Saviour, and shows them unto men. 
For this He opens their understandings that they may under- 
stand the Scriptures. For this He came into the world, and for 
this He remains in it. His great mission is to point to Christ, 
to testify of Him, and say to every soul thirsting for salvation, 
" Come, take the water of life freely." Whatever emotions 
men may experience, therefore, or whatever influences may be 
upon their minds, unless these emotions and influences lead to 
Christ, either directly or indirectly, we are not probably justi- 
fied in ascribing them to the Holy Spirit. He testifies of 
Christ. He has come in Christ's stead. " He shall not speak 
of Himself ; but whatsoever He shall hear that shall He speak. 
He shall glorify me." 

We are not, therefore, to refer to the Holy Ghost, that con- 
viction of sin which arises simply from the promptings of natural 
conscience. There is that within men, which is also a part of 
themselves, by the promptings of which they make a distinc- 
tion between some things as right, and other things as wrong. 
There is also inherent in their natures a sense of accountability ; 
a something that makes them feel that they are, in some degree, 
responsible for their conduct. Their moral standard may be 
very low, their notions of responsiblity very deficient and the 
sense of it weak ; yet, if they are men, the idea of manhood 
implies the possession of such a faculty in the soul, and its 
exercise in distinguishing responsible from irresponsible acts, 
and pronouncing upon them as morally right, or morally wrong. 

Such a faculty implies also some standard of moral conduct ; 
that is, some law which a wrong deed violates ; which a deed 
morally right complies with and honors. Whenever, therefore, 
that within men which thus distinguishes between the right 
and wrong of their conduct, pronounces sentence against them 
as wrong-doers, it convinces them of sin. There is thus con- 
viction simply by the action of natural conscience. 

This conviction, however, has not in itself alone necessarily 
any regard to the gospel, nor is it necessarily and in itself alone 
connected in any way with means of salvation. It is only the 
voice of a violated law uttering through natural conscience its 



John xvi. 8.] The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. 261 

sentence of condemnation against the transgressor. Those who 
never heard of a Saviour feel its power ; those who have sinned 
away the day of grace feel its power ; even, lost spirits in tor- 
ment feel its power ; and doubtless it is this that points the 
sting of the second death and fills it with venom, conviction of 
guilt, ever present, ever haunting the soul ; not the conviction 
of a single transgression, but the combined and concentrated 
convictions of the transgressions of a life-time. Under the 
power of natural conscience, these will be, to the lost sinner, a 
fire that cannot be quenched, a worm that cannot die. These 
convictions are not therefore necessarily the working of the 
Holy Spirit on the heart. 

Again. We are evidently not required by the text to refer 
to the Holy Ghost, as his direct and special influence, those 
convictions of sin that arise simply from the effect of the letter 
of the Scriptures on the natural conscience. The Scriptures 
may be read, as any other work is read, with only an intellect- 
ual appreciation of their teachings. They will, when thus 
read, enlighten conscience and greatly quicken its powers. 
They will bring out, with vastly greater clearness to the mind's 
apprehension, the distinction between right and wrong, and 
add proportionably to one's sense of responsibility. The in- 
fluence of the mere letter of Scripture is so great in this direc- 
tion, that it would, without doubt, be impossible to find, in 
those communities where the Bible is known, a single individual 
over whose conscience it had not a greater or less control. 
Those who love the Bible and reverence it as the Word of 
God, those who have little direct knowledge of it, or regard 
for it, and those who despise it, disbelieve it, and reject it, 
all feel its power, and in some measure acknowledge its author- 
ity. All, even the vilest contemners of it, and those who 
clamor most loudly against it, boasting of the light of nature 
within men as all-sufficient for the government of their moral 
actions, all these are immensely in advance, in this standard of 
morals, of any who in any age or country have lived where 
the Bible has not been known. This rule of right and wrong 
is more clearly defined, and they approach nearer the Scripture 
standard in their judgments. 

It is the letter of Scripture that produces this result, the 
merely intellectual apprehension of some of the great truths of 



262 The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. [Sekm. xxviii. 

the Bible. The dictates of natural conscience now become 
more imperative than they are without the Bible. Its decisions 
are more distinctly rendered. Its sentences of condemnation 
are pronounced in a more decided and firmer tone. It there- 
fore more clearly convinces of sin than it does where there is 
no knowledge of scripturally revealed truth. 

But there may be, in all this, no thought of salvation ; noth- 
ing whose tendency is in itself alone to lead the convicted sin- 
ner to seek after a Saviour. He feels himself condemned, but 
there is nothing that causes him to love sin any the less, nor to 
recognize, with any less of enmity of heart, the claims of the 
law which he is conscious of having violated. We have every 
reason to believe, that not only the spirits of lost men in the 
world of woe, have all this conviction, but even the devils feel 
it and are tormented by it. By both, the law of God is clearly 
known. Its requirements are understood ; but the law is never- 
theless hated, and its requirements spurned. Sin is loved and 
cherished, though it has become, by these enlightened convic- 
tions, the constant and increasing source of misery. Conviction 
of this sort has in it no saving element ; nothing in the least 
tending toward salvation. It may exist, therefore, in the minds 
of men without being produced by the direct agency of the 
Holy Ghost. 

Yet there is a conviction of sin which is the work of the 
Holy Spirit. And it would be dangerous for any sinner who 
lives in the enjoyment of the privileges of the gospel, to say 
of any of his convictions, that the Holy Ghost had no direct 
agency in their production. We are from our infancy so 
familiar with the main truths of the gospel, and so little accus- 
tomed, and so little able to distinguish the exact character of 
our mental acts, that we are not always able, indeed, we are 
generally entirely unable to say with certainty, what portion of 
our convictions of sin are the promptings of a merely natural 
conscience, or what are owing to the influence of the mere letter 
of Scripture. The God who inspired the Bible is ever near 
those who read it, or who are enlightened by it, and He is not 
willing that any of them should perish, but that all should 
come to repentance. When, therefore, we hear any voice of 
censure from conscience, or when this voice takes its tone from 
the Word of God, and pronounces our condemnation with more 



John xvi. 8.] The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. 263 

pointed emphasis, let us beware lest we be found resisting the 
Spirit of God in not heeding such convictions. All conviction 
obligates to repentance ; it is as much duty to repent without 
the Spirit as with. 

But there is, we say, and our text teaches us to say it, there 
is a convincing of sin beyond the convictions of the natural con- 
science, or the simple word which is produced by the direct 
agency of the Holy Ghost. " He will convince the world of 
sin because they believe not on me." He acts for Jesus Christ, 
in this his office work among men. He seeks the salvation of 
men in all his dealings with them, but it is to the honor of 
Jesus Christ alone as their Saviour. " He shall glorify me." 
His mission is from Christ, his agency in the world is for Christ. 
"Whatever convictions he produces must then be gospel convic- 
tions. They have reference to Christ, as the Being sinned 
against, and to Him as the Saviour from sin, both its power 
and its penalty. The authority of Christ is that which such 
convictions recognize. Ill-treatment of Christ in not believing 
on him, and a sense of danger, and of ill-deserving and of self- 
degradation, because of the rejection of Him by the soul, are 
some of the elements involved. 

Since also the Holy Spirit, while He seeks the glory of Christ 
in his work among men, seeks also their deliverance from sin, 
when He convinces them of guilt it is with the purpose of lead- 
ing them to break off from transgression and seek for pardon. 
The conviction which He produces has a tendency more or less 
distinctly felt by the sinner to this end. He may be resisted 
by the sinner whom He enlightens ; evangelical convictions may 
be smothered, and fought against, but their tendency never- 
theless is, and it is felt to be, to lead him to break off his sins 
by righteousness and return to God. Unlike the simple con- 
viction of conscience, either natural or enlightened, they are 
felt in their tender operation, not only in deterring from the 
commission of sin, but in seeking relief both from the evils it 
inflicts and its power in the soul. This conviction could not 
be in the bosom of a hopelessly lost soul. It could not visit 
the mind of spirits already under the power of the second death. 
It has in it hope for the sinner. It is therefore the conviction 
of sinners only who have the gospel offers made to them, and 
who are within the reach of its remedy. They are, by the 



264 The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. [Sekm. xxviii. 

Holy Ghost, convinced of sin with this all-important aim, — that 
they may be saved. The prompting of the conviction of the 
Holy Ghost is, " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the un- 
righteous man his thoughts ; and let him return unto the Lord, 
and He will have mercy upon him ; and to our God for He will 
abundantly pardon." 

The convicted sinner may, we repeat it, resist these in- 
fluences. He may endeavor to hush the voice of his conscience 
thus speaking in tones as much clearer than a simply intellect- 
ually enlightened conscience, as that is clearer than the mere 
voice of natural conscience. He may contend with these ten- 
dencies in his convictions to lead him to the Saviour, and may 
still love sin, and desire to live in the indulgence of it ; but the 
characteristics named mark his conviction to be the work of 
the Holy Spirit upon his mind by means of the truth of the 
gospel. 

The instances given in the New Testament, of persons who 
were evidently convinced of sin by the Spirit of God, all bring 
out clearly this evangelical character of their convictions. 
When the Holy Ghost was poured out so abundantly on the 
day of Pentecost, those who had hitherto been hardened and 
unconcerned notwithstanding all other conviction, — even that 
which the presence and the discourses and miracles of Jesus 
wrought in them, — these, now that the Holy Ghost was present 
to accompany the words of Peter as he preached of a crucified, 
risen Messiah, were not only convinced of sin in their treatment 
of Christ, but they were so convinced that " they were pricked 
in their heart," and yielding to the tendency of their convic- 
tions they said unto Peter and to the rest of the Apostles, 
" Men and brethren, what shall we do? " There was a regard 
to Christ in their convictions, a desire for salvation from the 
guilt of their conduct toward Christ. 

Such also was the tendency and the effect of the conviction 
of sin which the Holy Ghost wrought in the heart of the Philip- 
pian jailer. His first impulse was to cry, " Sirs, what must I 
do to be saved? " And from that day to the present, the sin- 
ner whom the Spirit of God convinces of sin by gospel truth is 
influenced by that Spirit toward the seeking of his salvation. 
And though we are not permitted to say, as some do of all 
conviction of sin, that it is produced by the direct agency of the 



John xvi. 8.] The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. 265 

Holy Ghost, we are compelled to say of all convictions whose 
tendency is of this character, which prompt, however feebly, the 
breaking off from sin and turning to God, are of Him. For 
the heart of man is naturally depraved. All its imaginings 
are evil ; all its desires are sinful ; all its promptings are to- 
wards sin. No inclining to holiness ever sprung from a natural 
heart ; for it is evil and only evil continually. But the Spirit 
lusteth against the flesh. He works upon depraved hearts ; and 
giving new power to conscience, He prompts to the forsaking 
of sin under its more powerful censures. Because He glorifies 
Christ in all his work for men, when under their conviction 
of sin they find themselves urged towards the Saviour, let 
them know that these workings of their mind come of a higher 
power than themselves. It is the Holy Spirit who is convinc- 
ing them of sin, that they may flee to Christ and in Him find 
eternal salvation. 

In conclusion, we remark, from this subject, that it should 
not be forgotten that conviction of sin is not conversion from 
it. Conviction — even that which is of the Holy Ghost — may 
be resisted, and the sinner may turn himself anew to his trans- 
gressions. It matters not how clearly convinced he may have 
been of his sins, nor how much he may have trembled in view 
of his guilt and condemnation, unless he has followed the 
prompting of their convictions, and turned to God by faith in 
Christ and become a child of God, he is yet an heir of wrath, 
in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. It is not 
enough that you have found relief from distress of mind in 
view of your sinfulness. This may have come without your be- 
lieving in the Lord Jesus Christ, and being saved by his grace. 
It may have come in ways that shall only enhance your guilt 
and aggravate your condemnation. 

And this leads us to remark, secondly, in the light of our 
subject, that those who are awakened to a sense of their sins 
are in most solemn and dangerous circumstances. Is it not a 
most solemn thought that the Spirit of God is now moving 
upon your minds ; that He is with you ; going with you into 
your retirement ; following you into all the walks of life, and 
constantly saying to you that you are a sinner against God, 
under his wrath, and at the same time wooing you with the 
earnestness and love of a parent to seek the salvation of your 



286 The Convincing of the Holy Spirit. [Sekm. xxviii. 

soul. It is God Himself who is thus convincing you of sin, and 
urging you to come to Christ that you may have pardon and 
eternal life. Oh, it is a solemn thing to be thus the subject of 
the special care and influence of the Holy Ghost ! But it is 
also dangerous. " My Spirit shall not always strive with man," 
is the emphatic declaration of the Almighty. Every moment 
you remain in unbelief, not coming to Christ as your Saviour, 
you are resisting God. He is drawing you from your sins, and 
urging you to accept the Saviour ; but you resist his influence. 
You still cling to sin and cherish unbelief. You still refuse 
Jesus Christ. This is nothing short of fighting against God. 
It is endangering the eternal interest of the soul. There is 
danger every moment lest God shall say, Let him alone, he is 
joined to his idols. Do not then, my dear friends, trifle with 
your convictions of sin. Remember whence they come. 



SERMON XXIX. 

RESISTING THE HOLY GHOST. 



Acts vii. 51. — Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. 

THE doctrines pertaining to the Holy Spirit are among the 
most solemn and momentous of any found in the Scrip- 
tures. They are not, it is true, stated with such directness, 
nor placed so boldly in the foreground as many other doctrines. 
Those, for example, pertaining to the Father and the Son, and 
to the characters and destiny of men. But the doctrines of the 
Holy Ghost are in the Scriptures. His personality, his distinc- 
tive character, the fact that He influences the minds of men to- 
wards holiness and salvation, — these and others are clearly 
taught. Yet they are for the most part rather assumed and im- 
plied, or suggested, than formally stated. What is said of Him 
by the sacred writers is generally said as though his existence 
and personality and offices among men were already known to 
those who are addressed, and therefore needed not to be form- 
ally declared. What is said of his work is so said as plainly to 
suggest the great features of his character. At the same time 
almost everything pertaining to his person, his character, and 
the method of his work among and upon men is shrouded more 
or less in darkness, and veiled in mystery. The truth is dis- 
tinctly seen, but so seen as to suggest far more than is posi- 
tively manifested. 

This is true, not only of the revelation which is made of Him 
in the Scriptures, but of that which is made by his work upon 
the hearts of men. It was not possible, for example, for the 
disciples on the day of Pentecost to doubt the presence, and the 
mighty power of the Holy Ghost. They knew by his work 
upon themselves that He was with them, and that He was im- 
buing their whole souls with holiness and love and faith ; and 
clothing them with divine energy for the work which the Lord 



268 Resisting the Holy Ghost. [Sekm. xxix 

had committed to their hands. Yet there was no visible pres- 
ence, no audible voice. The revelation, though clear as the 
sun in the heavens, was yet a revelation involved in impene- 
trable mystery. More was intimated and suggested than was 
directly declared, and far more concealed than was brought 
fully to light. 

It is the same with the work of the Holy Spirit among and 
upon men now. Whether his influences rest upon the mind oi 
a sinner, convincing him of sin and of righteousness, and oi 
judgment, urging him to immediate repentance or wooing him 
to Christ, — or, on that of a believer, enlightening, comforting, 
sanctifying, — his influence is in either case a revelation. It 
makes known his presence, his power, and his deep interest in 
the well-being of those upon whose minds He moves. Bat 
how much more is manifestly kept back than is made known ' 
They are but the hidings of his presence and his power that 
are revealed. One becomes sure, it may be, of an unseen pres- 
ence with Him in such circumstances. If he pause, and reflect 
and open his mind to the influences that seem to be breathing 
upon him he will be doubly assured of it. There is no visible 
and tangible form upon which his eye may look, or of which 
he may become conscious by his bodily senses ; but that there 
is an invisible One with him he will not doubt. The invisible 
presence will impress him with solemn awe, and he will feel 
that he must walk softly before it, and with most pure and 
reverent thoughts and aims. He will seem to hear a voice, ae 
Moses did from the burning bush, saying, " The place whereon 
thou standest is holy ground." He will be ready to exclaim 
with Jacob at Bethel, " Surely the Lord is in this place." The 
conviction of his mind will become clear that the invisible and 
incomprehensible God is present with him — certainly present, 
— but present in unapproachable mystery ; solemnly, earnestly, 
lovingly present to win him to holiness, to comfort and to save 
him — but present only to the apprehension of his innermost 
soul. 

In studying what the Scriptures teach regarding the Holy 
Ghost, this peculiarity in the method and degree of his mani- 
festation must be borne in mind. We can never know Him or 
his ways but in part. Yet what is revealed, either directly or 
by implication, is plain, and need never be misunderstood. It 



A.CTS vii. 51.] Residing the Holy Ghost. 269 

is plain although involved in solemn mysteries. But these 
mysteries do not distract the soul, nor hinder its faith, but fill 
it with reverence and careful earnestness. 

Let us now give our attention to one of the doctrines per- 
taining to the Holy Spirit. It is involved in these earnest and 
stinging words of the martyr Stephen to the Jewish Sanhe- 
drim : " Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost." The doctrine 
is that the Holy Ghost may be, and He is resisted by men. 
They withstand Him ; they oppose his sway ; they set them- 
selves against his influences and aim to thwart his purposes. 
Stephen's murderers were doing this, and as they were doing 
their fathers had done. " Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost : 
as your fathers, so ye." It was the constant practice of their 
Lives to do it. Their lives were ordered upon such principles, 
animated by such a spirit, and aimed at such purposes that 
they were always resisting the Holy Ghost. It had been the 
same with their fathers who had persecuted the prophets, and 
slain those who " had showed before of the coming of the Just 
One." 

By the words immediately following these which we have 
quoted, it is plain that the resistance to the Holy Ghost of 
which Stephen speaks was not found alone in their present op- 
position and murderous purposes towards himself, nor alone in 
that act of which he now boldly accuses them, — the betrayal 
and murder of the Just One. It was deeper and more per- 
vasive. It entered into their characters and shaped all their 
conduct. Their hatred and persecution of him, and their be- 
trayal and murder of the Just One, were but single acts in a 
whole life of sinning. Stephen therefore sums up the evidence, 
and gives the essence of their resistance to the Holy Ghost by 
adding, " who have received the law by the disposition of an- 
gels, and have not kept it." This was the root out of which 
all else had grown. They had the law of God, and yet were 
living in disobedience to it. Thus they were resisting the Holy 
Ghost always. The single acts, namely, their hatred and per- 
secution of Stephen, and their betraying and murdering the 
Just One, were only the more earnest, emphatic, and palpable 
exhibitions of what was constantly going on in reality though 
under different and less marked forms. They were always 
resisting the Holy Ghost because they were living in unchecked 
and uninterrupted disobedience of the law of God. 



270 Resisting the Holy Ghost. [Sekm. xxix. 

This, let me remark in passing, is the Scriptural method of 
looking at sin. In whatever aggravated forms it may appear 
in certain deeds, these deeds are but the outgrowths of a com- 
mon root that is hidden in the heart, and that gives forth the 
ordinary and less noted deeds of the life, not less than these, 
the more marked and offensive. There is in them all the spirit 
of disobedience ; and it is essentially the same in one as in an- 
other, just as it is the same sap that circulates in every limb 
and twig of the tree, that circulates in its trunk. 

1. In the light of the passage before us then, the first lesson 
that we learn is, that every one who is living in sin is resisting 
the Holy Ghost. His life is a life of disobedience to the law of 
God. He sets himself against that law, and against the divine 
authority. He has in himself the very principle that gave 
power and earnestness to the persecutors of Stephen, and to 
which he traced back, as to its fountain, their resistance of the 
Holy Ghost. He who is thus living is giving this principle 
full play in the general ordering of his life. He has in him 
that germ which bore, as its legitimate fruit, the betrayal and 
murder of the Just One, and he is bringing forth fruit of the 
same general character, though not, it may be, of precisely the 
same species. 

How this is resisting the Holy Ghost will be evident if we 
reflect a moment on what is revealed as the office of the Holy 
Spirit in the giving of the law of God. The Word of God 
is from Him. In the writing of it, " holy men of God spake 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Every command and 
every precept which a sinner disobeys is the command and pre- 
cept of the Holy Ghost. It is the expression of his will ; and 
all his authority is in it. It is the Holy Ghost who has spoken 
in the command and the precept, and it is his voice which the 
sinner hears, in whatever manner the requirement may reach 
his ears, or become known to his conscience. To refuse to obey 
is, then, to resist the Spirit's will ; and to disobey is to exalt 
one's self against the Spirit's authority. 

This is the attitude of every one who is living in the com- 
mission of sin. Whatever his sin may be, he is setting at 
naught and trampling upon the commands of the Holy Ghost, 
opposing his will, and standing out against his authority. This 
is resisting the Holy Ghost. The Prophet Isaiah so counted 



Acxsvii. 51.] Resisting the Holy Ghost. 271 

it. Speaking of the children of Israel in their wanderings 
in the wilderness, he says, " the Lord bare them, and carried 
them all the days of old." " But they rebelled, and vexed his 
Holy Spirit." Their rebellion was in disobeying his injunc- 
tions, refusing to heed his teachings and admonitions. They 
thus vexed the Holy Spirit. This case is precisely parallel 
with that of any sinner. He rebels against the authority and 
resists the will of the Holy Spirit by transgressing the divine 
law. If he persist in his sinful courses, as the children of Israel 
did, until God will bear with him no longer, he then, as they 
did, vexes the Holy Spirit by his rebellion, and he is given over 
to the evils of the way in which he has chosen to walk, and is 
left to reap the fruit of the seed he has sown. " My Spirit," 
says God, " shall not always strive with man." Sooner or later 
it will be said of each unrepenting sinner, as it was said of 
Ephraim, " He is joined to his idols : let him alone ! " 

2. But there are special forms of resisting the Holy Ghost 
which the Scriptures take cognizance of, and which we may 
properly consider for a few minutes. 

1. One of these was especially in the mind of Stephen when 
he uttered the words of our text. He had been preaching the 
gospel of Jesus Christ to his hearers. Like Paul at Thessa- 
lonica, he had been " reasoning with them out of the Scrip- 
tures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suf- 
fered, and risen again from the dead ; and that this Jesus 
whom I preach unto you is the Christ." They would not yield 
to his reasonings, but they set themselves firmly against the 
truth. Fixed in their unbelief and impenitency and prepos- 
session against Jesus as the Messiah, they could not be induced 
to heed the message which was addressed to them, nor yield 
to its claims, or accept its offers of mercy. The gospel was 
preached to them ; they would not obey it. Repentance and 
remission of sins was proclaimed to them in the name and 
through the death of the Redeemer ; but they turned away 
from the proclamation as though it were a thing of naught, or 
something with which they had no concern. In this, especially, 
was their sin at that moment, and this was the immediate occa- 
sion of the withering rebuke that Stephen administered to 
them. They refused the Lord Jesus Christ as their Redeemer 
and Saviour. In this they resisted the Holy Ghost. It was 



272 Resisting the Holy Ghost. [Serm. xxix. 

not the manner in which they refused the offered Saviour, nor 
the angry and bloodthirsty spirit in which they refused Him, 
that constituted their resistance. These were but incidents. 
The real act, and that which was lying back of these, and 
gave them their dark character, was their refusing the Lord 
Jesus Christ as He was offered to them in the gospel. They, 
like their fathers, would not endure the showing to them of the 
coming of the Just One. The essence of their guilt was that 
they turned away from Him. They said in their hearts and by 
their lives, " We will not have this man to reign over us." 

This, you perceive, is what every sinner does to whom Jesus 
Christ is preached, and who refuses Him as He is presented in 
the gospel. To every such sinner repentance and remission of 
sins is preached, in the name of the crucified but risen Saviour. 
He is called upon by divine authority to turn to Him in peni- 
tence and faith, confessing Him as Lord, bowing to his author- 
ity, and humbly accepting his offered mercy. Every exhibition 
of Christ to lost men, as their Redeemer, is, in the main ele- 
ment, the same exhibition that Stephen was making to his 
hearers ; and every rejection of Christ, when thus exhibited, 
be the exhibition by whom, or in what manner it may, is essen- 
tially the same as that of which they were guilty. In them 
refusing Christ was resisting the Holy Ghost. It is the same 
with every one who refuses Christ. For Christ Himself says, 
" He that is not for me is against me." This places every 
one who does not receive Christ, among his enemies, and 
brings rejection of Him by sinners at the present day, upon the 
same level, and loads it with the same consequences, and with 
the same guilt, that followed his rejection by those to whom 
Stephen declared Him. All who refuse the offers of mercy in 
Christ Jesus now, and will not receive Him as their Redeemer 
and Lord, — they too are in this resisting the Holy Ghost. 

The reason is manifest. The gospel, as the law, is a part of 
the Word of God. The Holy Spirit Himself has spoken it to 
men. Holy men, in the writing of the New Testament, not 
less than in the writing of the Old Testament, " spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost." Besides, our Lord Himself 
told his disciples that the special office of the Spirit in the gos- 
pel day, would be to guide them into all truth. " He shall 
glorify me," said the Saviour, " for He shall receive of mine 



Acts vii. 51.] Resisting the Holy Ghost, 273 

and show it unto you." The Redeemer left his immediate dis- 
ciples to be thus taught by the Holy Ghost. He revealed unto 
them new truth, — that which their minds could not grasp un- 
til the great atonement had been made, — and He brought all 
things to their remembrance that the Lord Himself had taught 
them. These truths, both those that the Apostles were newly 
taught, and those that they were divinely enabled to remem- 
ber, were from the Holy Spirit. These truths together consti- 
tute the entire gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is this that is 
preached to sinners when Christ is preached to them, and they 
are besought to be reconciled to God. It is the message of the 
Holy Spirit that is then delivered to them. They are his 
words that are spoken ; they are his offers of salvation that are 
made ; it is his exhortation that is then urged upon sinners to 
exercise repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

Not to obey the gospel is, then, to oppose the will of the 
Holy Spirit. It is to set at naught his authority, and to go 
directly counter to his commands and requirements. What is 
this but resisting the Holy Ghost ? 

Yet, further, our Lord said to his disciples, " When the Com- 
forter, which is the Holy Ghost, shall come, He will reprove 
[convince] the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judg- 
ment." This He does not only by the preaching of the gospel, 
but also by those special influences upon the minds of men by 
which their attention is aroused, their consciences quickened, 
and they come into a realization of their sinfulness and guilt, 
of the righteousness of God, and of their exposure to the fear- 
ful condemnation of the judgment of the last day. These 
awakening influences are from the Holy Spirit. Conviction for 
sin is awakened directly by his influence upon the mind. Fear 
of the wrath of a holy God and of coming judgment is thus 
awakened. It is He who brings into the soul thoughts of these 
things and by them breaks up, for the time being, the joy and 
satisfaction which the soul has been wont to have in a worldly 
and sinful life. It is He who opens eternity and retribution to 
the view of the soul, and suddenly divests all earthly treasures 
and pursuits of all value and attractiveness. It is He who 
meets many a soul Sabbath after Sabbath, and has long been 
meeting some who are here to-day, now alarming them with 

18 



274 Resisting the Holy Ghost. [Serm. xxix. 

thoughts of judgment and fiery indignation, and the wrath to 
come ; now moving them to tenderness and sad unrest and dis- 
satisfaction with themselves ; now wooing them by thoughts of 
heaven, and by the love of Christ, to break off their sins and 
return to God, and yet they go out into the world each succes- 
sive week to forget, to become insensible, to drift away again 
on the current of worldliness and sin towards final perdition. 

These influences cannot be disregarded, these experiences 
driven away by neglect of God and the interests of the soul, 
all serious feeling continually banished, all convictions of sin 
smothered, and the Spirit of God not be resisted ! He is re- 
sisted by all these means, and in all these ways. How long 
can this course be continued, and He be not vexed and turned 
to be your enemy, and fight against you ? It is fearfully plain 
by the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit does then turn against 
the incorrigibly impenitent. I need call your attention to but 
one passage in proof of this assertion, Proverbs i. 23-31. 

2. This brings us to consider another form in which, as the 
Scriptures teach us, the Holy Spirit is resisted. It is distinctly 
and formally stated by none but our Saviour. " Wherefore I 
say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be for- 
given unto men : but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost 
shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a 
word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him : but 
whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be for- 
given him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." 
There is no mystery in this. Just let prejudice, selfishness, 
obstinacy, wickedness, go so far that all argument, proof, even 
knowledge itself, is trampled under foot, and hatred of Him 
whom the Holy Ghost presents, and ascribe his deeds to the in- 
fluence of Satan — and the sin is committed. For the preced- 
ing narrative reads thus : " Then was brought unto Him one 
possessed with a devil, blind and dumb ; and He healed him, 
insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. And 
all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of 
David ? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fel- 
low doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of 
the devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto 
them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to deso- 
lation ; and every city or house divided against itself shall not 



Acts vii. 51.] Resisting the Holy Ghost. 275 

stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against him- 
self ; how shall then his kingdom stand ? And if I by Beelze- 
bub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out ? 
therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils 
by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto 
you. Or else, how can one enter into a strong man's house, 
and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man ? and 
then he will spoil his house. He that is not with me, is against 
me : and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad. 
Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy 
shall be forgiven unto men : but the blasphemy against the 
Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever 
speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven 
him : but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall 
not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world 
to come.'* 



SERMON XXX. 

ON GRIEVING THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



Eph. iv. 30. — Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are seated unto the day 

of redemption. 

f" INVITE your attention, in the first place, to the meaning 
-*- of some of the terms used in this passage. 

1. By " the day of redemption " is meant, doubtless, the 
day of final and full deliverance from all the consequences of 
sin. That day will be the one on which the Lord comes again 
to this world. He will come then, " without sin unto salva- 
tion," to be glorified in all his saints. Then, but not before, 
every believer will receive in full the fruits of redemption, and 
enter fully into all its blessed consequences. Until then he 
will not be delivered from all the consequences of sin. While 
he remains in the flesh he is exposed continually to tempta- 
tions, and always carries about within him that " law in his 
members that wars against the law of his mind," and brings 
him to a greater or less extent into " captivity to the law of 
sin." After his departure from the body he is no longer sub- 
ject to temptation, indeed, nor to the antagonism of the carnal 
against the spiritual. Nevertheless, he is not altogether per- 
fected until the coming of the Lord. Till then he is in a state 
of waiting. For he cannot be wholly glorified individually till 
the whole Church of the Redeemer is glorified with him. There 
will be particularly no resurrection, and, therefore, no glorifica- 
tion of his body until then, and hence, until then, his body 
will not have its redemption. Meanwhile he waits for this, 
and expects it with strong desire. Therefore the Apostle rep- 
resents the whole regenerate family as being in this condition of 
expectancy, — " waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemp- 
tion of our body." When this has been raised and made spirit- 
ual, and reunited to the soul, then the last and crowning work 



Eph. iv. 30.] On Grieving the Holy Spirit. 277 

of redemption will have been wrought. The purpose of Christ's 
death respecting believers will have been fully accomplished. 
Then both soul and body, delivered from all the consequences 
of sin, will enter on an eternity of perfect holiness. 
This will be, emphatically, " the day of redemption." 
2. The Apostle says that believers " are sealed unto this 
day of redemption by the Holy Spirit of God." 

This figurative use of the word to seal came from the great 
prevalence and importance of this act among the ancients. 
Writings were sealed by them more frequently and more 
sacredly than they are by us, to attest their genuineness and 
give them binding power and authority. Articles of great 
value, or of special importance, were solemnly sealed to guard 
them against interference or intrusion on the part of those who 
were not authorized to meddle with them. A seal attached to 
a written instrument was, therefore, a strong testimony that it 
was genuine, and just what it purported to be. And a seal 
set on any important or valuable article of property, or of de- 
posit, was a warning to all not to interfere with it, and so it 
guarded it against intrusion and kept it in safety for its right- 
ful owner. 

From these two uses of the seal, namely, to attest the genu- 
ineness and authority of written instruments, and to guard im- 
portant and valuable articles against interference by unauthor- 
ized persons, and so preserve them in safety for the use of their 
rightful owners, — from these two uses of the seal the word 
came to designate any process by which genuineness was at- 
tested, and important articles, or articles of value, were made 
secure. 

Both these meanings of the word enter into its use in this 
passage. In the first place it is the Holy Spirit who impressed 
upon the believer's soul those evidences of its new creation in 
Christ Jesus — of its change from the carnal to the spiritual — 
that attest the genuineness of its repentance and faith, and the 
reality of its sonship with God. The Apostle speaks thus of 
the renewed soul as " an epistle of Christ, written not with ink, 
but with the Spirit of the living God." All that is Christ-like 
in such a soul is of the Holy Spirit's producing ; and by produc- 
ing it within the soul He sets his seal upon it, and makes its 
genuineness appear clearly and with certainty, not only to the 



278 On Grieving the Holy Spirit. [Serm. xxx. 

eye of God, but to the believer's own consciousness. It is thus 
that the Spirit Himself " beareth witness with our spirit that 
we are the children of God." Hence the Apostle John says so 
emphatically, i: He that believeth on the Son of God hath the 
witness in himself." 

Again, they are the impressions which the Holy Spirit makes 
upon the believer's soul that guard it against the influences of 
Satan and of the world, and, by enabling it to endure unto the 
end, make its ultimate salvation secure. For it is the Holy 
Spirit of God that evermore is working in us, " the willing 
and the doing of his good pleasure." It is the Holy Spirit of 
God who "helps our infirmities" lest we should sink beneath 
them in despair. It is the Holy Spirit of God who continually 
" makes intercession for us, with groanings that cannot be ut- 
tered," when we " know not what we should pray for as we 
ought " for ourselves. In this manner, and by these means, it 
is that the believer's ultimate salvation is made sure. It is 
thus that he is " sealed by the Holy Spirit of God unto the 
day of redemption." 

3. The next word to which I invite your attention is the 
central one in the Apostle's command : " Grieve ; " " Grieve 
not the Holy Spirit of God." We have no evidence that the 
Apostle did not use this word in its common signification. He 
did not write at random, nor in ignorance, but with intelligence 
and purpose. To grieve is to cause sorrow and sadness ; to give 
pain and heaviness of heart. As a general rule, he who grieves 
another does it by disappointing those expectations that rest 
upon personal love and trust. Love is not responded to and 
requited where there was good reason to expect it would be ; con- 
fidence is betrayed, or treated with lightness, when there was 
good reason to expect it to be held sacred and fully justified 
by the conduct of the one confided in. When we have neither 
love for one, nor confidence in him, he cannot grieve us. He 
may make us sad, he may fill us with sorrow, he may inflict 
keen mental suffering upon us, but these will not be the sad- 
ness and sorrow and suffering that constitute grief. He who 
inflicts these upon us must be one that we love and trust, and 
from whom, therefore, we expect something better. It is be- 
cause the disciples of Christ are loved by the Holy Spirit, and 
confided in, that they can grieve Him. They can disappoint 



Eph. iv. 30.] On Girieving the Holy Spirit. 279 

Him. They can disregard and abuse his love ; they can show 
themselves unworthy of his confidence. They can therefore 
grieve Him. The unconverted may strive against Him ; they 
may resist Him ; they may provoke Him to anger ; but they 
are never said, in the Scriptures, to grieve Him. His love 
for them, and confidence in them, are not such as He has to- 
wards the children of God. Towards them alone does He have 
that peculiar love and confidence, whose neglect and disappoint- 
ment give the peculiar sorrow and sadness and pain of grief. 

To say that the Holy Spirit can be grieved, is only saying 
that He is just such a being as Jesus Christ has revealed God 
to be. We know nothing of the nature and character of God 
saving only as they are revealed to us in the person of Jesus 
Christ. He was " God manifested." As Jesus Christ thought 
and felt, so God feels and thinks. Jesus Christ was not that 
emotionless being that speculation and philosophy have held 
up before our minds as God. On the contrary, He was full of 
emotion. No being ever manifested deeper feeling, more tender 
sympathies, more ardent love, more intense desire, or keener 
susceptibility to pain and mental anguish. When, therefore, 
the Apostle commands us not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, 
he teaches us to think of the Holy Spirit as such a Being as 
Christ revealed God to be. He is a Being of emotions. He 
loves ; He desires ; He trusts ; He is deeply interested in the 
disciples of Christ, and cherishes them with fondness and af- 
fection. When they disappoint his trust, and ill-requite his 
love, He is pained, just as Jesus Christ was pained by these 
things. They cause Him sorrow and sadness, just as Christ's 
disciples caused Him sorrow and sadness, when He was on 
earth, by their unworthy treatment of Him, and this sorrow 
and sadness and pain are the grief which they are commanded 
not to inflict on the Holy Spirit of God. 

2. This brings us, in the second place, to consider the com- 
mand itself, and to inquire how it is that believers grieve the 
Holy Spirit. In general terms, any conduct or any temper of 
mind that is unholy, must be offensive to such a Being ; and 
this conduct or this temper of mind in those whom He loves 
and trusts, as He does the disciples of Christ, are an ill-requit- 
ing of his love, and an abuse of his confidence. But the verses 
that stand in immediate connection with the text give us a 



280 On Grieving the Holy Spirit. [Serm. xxx. 

more specific answer. When we look at it carefully, we find 
that this text is the central one of several divine commands. 
All these other commands sustain a direct and subordinate re- 
lation to this one ; and each of the others designates a form in 
which this one is violated. These specific and subordinate 
commands begin with the twenty-fifth verse, and extend to the 
end of the chapter. The Apostle had just called the attention 
of the Ephesian Christians to the fact that they, and all others 
who had " learned Christ," had put off the old man which is 
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and been renewed in 
the spirit of their minds, and had put on the new man which 
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. In view 
of this fact he now urges those who have been thus " renewed 
in the spirit of their minds," to bring their whole being and con- 
duct under the government of this renewed spirit, and to let 
every feeling and word and deed be an expression of it ; and 
the one great reason why he would have them do it is that they 
may not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Hence he says, " Put- 
ting away lying," — the peculiar vice of the old unrenewed 
spirit, — " speak every man the truth with his neighbor ; for we 
are members one of another. Be ye angry and sin not : let not 
the sun go down upon your wrath ; neither give place to the 
devil. Let him that stole " — another peculiar vice of the old 
unrenewed man — " steal no more ; but rather let him labor, 
working with his hands that which is good, that he may have 
to impart to him that hath need," — one of the first prompt- 
ings of a renewed spirit. " Let no corrupt communication pro- 
ceed out of your mouth," — another special vice of their former 
state, — " but whatever is good for needful edification, that it 
may minister grace unto the hearers." Then comes in the text, 
as the crowning command of all, and the one towards which 
they all tend : " Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby 
ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Then follows the 
further specifications : " Let all bitterness, and wrath, and an- 
ger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with 
all malice ; and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, for- 
giving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven 
you." The first series pertains mainly to outward life and the 
great motives of conduct. The second series pertains mainly 
to the spirit and temper of the mind itself, and the tone of the 



Eph. iv. 30.] On Grieving the Holy Spirit, 281 

life. In the centre of these commands, then, you see, midway 
between those that are prohibitory and those that are positive, 
stands the command that we are considering. A violation of 
any one in either of these classes of commands is a violation 
of this central command. The doing of any one of the specific 
things that are forbidden, or the not doing of either of the 
things specifically commanded, is that which grieves the Holy 
Spirit of God. In other words, the disciples of Christ grieve 
the Holy Spirit by living a dishonest and immoral life, or in- 
dulging in impure and unbecoming words, or cherishing an 
unkind and unforgiving spirit. For you will see, if you exam- 
ine the context closely, that these specific prohibitions and in- 
junctions cover just this ground, and that they are a condem- 
nation of just these three classes of sins. 

1. First of all, e. g., you have the command against lying 
and stealing and the indulgence of unholy passion in your 
dealing with your fellow men. There must be no false deal- 
ing, no deception, no defrauding, no taking from any of that 
which you have no right to take, and no indulgence of an un- 
holy temper towards them, which prompts you to do them 
injustice or wrong. On the contrary, there must be straight- 
forward truthfulness ; downright honesty ; an out-and-out 
Christian fairness and friendliness. Nor is such a command 
uncalled for even among the professed friends of Christ. For 
there is many a man among them who will shrink back shocked 
at the thought, e. g., of uttering a direct and palpable lie, but 
who will, nevertheless, permit those with whom he is dealing 
to act under false . impressions which he might remove by a 
single word, and which a thoroughly truth-telling spirit would 
prompt him at once to utter. The Apostle's injunction covers 
both sides of the matter. First, you must put away lying ; 
then you must speak truth with your neighbor. You may 
not deceive him by telling him a falsehood; you may not 
permit him to rest under a misapprehension by holding your 
peace, when telling him the truth, as you know it to be, will set 
him right. Otherwise you violate the obligations of a common 
brotherhood, for " we are members one of another ; " and you 
give place to the devil to rule your life, instead of bringing 
your life under the rule, and submitting it to the will of Jesus 
Christ. Thus you " grieve the Holy Spirit of God," who has 



282 On Grieving the Holy Spirit. [Sekm. xxx. 

created you anew for Christ, who has pledged you to Him, in 
all your being, and who seeks constantly to preserve you holy 
and to perfect you for Him at his coming. 

Again, there is many a man who, e. g., would shrink back 
from the thought of direct and palpable stealing, with the 
exclamation of Hazael to Elisha, " What, is thy servant a dog, 
that he should do this great thing ? " and yet in many an in- 
direct way he would appropriate to himself that which be- 
longed to another, and have no other misgiving, than a certain 
indefinite consciousness of meanness and unmanliness. How 
many are they who, for example, will not shrink from living 
without labor, if they can, taking, in some form, and enjoying 
the products of your labor, without rendering you any equiv- 
alent ! How many are they who would not blush to hold 
some position of merely nominal service to you, as multitudes 
hold such positions under our government, and draw the salary 
and perquisites of office, without rendering the slightest equiv- 
alent therefor ! But no man, governed by the spirit of Chris- 
tian honesty, could do any such thing. The Apostle recognizes 
this in the next verse, as he does also in other passages of his 
epistles : Let no man steal, that is, appropriate to himself, in 
any way, that which does not belong to him ; but rather let 
him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, 
that he may have means, not only for the supplying of his 
own wants, but for purposes of benevolence, — without the 
having and carrying out of which he will fail, not only of the 
richest Christian experiences, but to give the commonest of all 
evidences that he is a Christian at all. 

This matter of personal labor and its relation to life, which is 
so mystified among men in civilized society, has no mystification 
about it in the light of inspired teachings. It is all reduced 
to a very simple question here. It comes just to this : " If a 
man will not work, neither shall he eat." If he will not work 
but half a day, he shall have pay but for half a day. This 
is the Christian law ; and it is a law that governs all classes, 
and strikes a deadly blow at the root of a very large portion 
of the practical evils of civilized society. Let the inspired 
precept have full effect on all classes of people, and instantly 
the world would be freed from untold amounts of vice and 
misery. Let it become the inflexible law that the idler shall 



Eph. iv. 30.] On Grieving the Holy Spirit. 283 

not eat ; let this law govern all public and state charities ; let 
it govern in all benevolent enterprises ; let it govern in all 
families, and in all the relations of each man to every other, — 
and a temporal and social millenium would dawn in glory upon 
our poor, deluded, cheated, poverty-stricken world. 

But it is not my purpose now to press this Apostolic precept 
in its general bearings. We have to do with it only in its 
bearing on our own Christian living, as connected with the 
command before us, " Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, by 
whom ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." And what 
I say is, that these specific commands for truth-telling and 
honest living, are not out of place in teaching the disciples of 
Christ about their relation to the Holy Spirit. No man can 
live the life of an idler, and be a faithful disciple of Jesus 
Christ. The very process of making one a disciple of Christ 
is all in view of a work to which Christ calls him. For he is 
" created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath be- 
fore ordained that he should walk in them." For him to be an 
idler is, therefore, to live contrary to, and to thwart, the fore- 
ordination of God, and to pervert the whole purpose of Christ 
in making him a disciple. How is it possible then that he 
should not by this way of living grieve the Holy Spirit of God, 
who made him a new creature in Christ Jesus, purposely that 
he might glorify Christ by doing the works of a faithful dis- 
ciple ? 

But if no man can live the life of an idler and be a faithful 
disciple of Christ, much less can one add to his idleness theft, 
and be such a disciple. And every one does add theft to idle- 
ness, who, having the ability to earn his own bread, eats the 
bread that another earns. But what a sight this thought 
brings before our eyes ! That great multitude that crowds all 
our great cities, e. g., doing nothing, because they cannot do 
what they fancy they want to do, come under this class, and 
are living in open violation of the divine command. The 
Apostle's language is very suggestive in its application to this 
class of idlers : " Let him labor, working with his hands." God 
has given all men hands to work with. He has given to all 
men brains enough to guide and direct their hands in work. 
But he has given very few, comparatively, brains enough to get 
an honest living with, without the labor of their hands. There 



28i On Grieving the Holy Spirit. [Serm. xxx. 

are two fundamental and most pernicious errors prevalent in 
the world on this matter, errors that are most emphatically con- 
demned by the Word of God, and sternly frowned upon by the 
gospel of Jesus Christ. The first error is, the supposing that 
manual labor is less respectable, less honorable than other 
labor ; and the other is that other labor is easier than the labor 
of the hands. Never were greater mistakes made than are 
made by those who thus judge. Who can tell me in what re- 
spect a true man is less honorable when he ploughs the field, or 
works in a shop with his hands than he is when he stands be- 
hind a counter, or sits in a counting-room, or in an office, or in 
a study, etc. And as to ease, none who have tried brain work 
after work with the hands will ever commit the mistake of giv- 
ing the preference to the former. But influenced by these two 
errors, there are multitudes all around us doing nothing, living 
the lives of idlers ; mere leeches and parasites on society, who 
ought to be industrious and thrifty citizens. And there is a 
vast number of others who are trying to do something, it is 
true ; but they accomplish nothing, and are really parasites also 
on society, because they persist in trying to do that which God 
never called them to do, and which they have no fitness to do. 
Looking at both these classes, how many a young man do we see 
waiting for some place behind a counter, or in an office, who 
fancies that laboring with his hands would dishonor him, but 
who feels it no dishonor, no loss of respectability to be living 
from the industry of his friends. He has always failed, and 
he will forever fail, in any of the situations which he desires to 
obtain ; but he might easily become a manly and honored mem- 
ber of the community by betaking himself to that calling for 
which he is fitted by natural gifts and endowments ? And 
how many men do we see in all the professions eking out a 
miserable subsistence, or starving, unhonored and unfelt in 
the general interests of society, who might easily make them- 
selves leaders in callings to which their faculties adapt them ! 
Many a doctor, who is thus wasting away his life in waiting 
for fees which he has no capacity to earn ; many a lawyer who 
pines for cases which he has no skill to manage ; many a minis- 
ter who starves in trying to do that for which God never in- 
tended him, might be already on the high road to affluence, 
and reveling in comforts, the patron of all good enterprises, 



Eph. iv. 30.] On G-rieving the Holy Spirit. 285 

honored and respected by all in the community whose honor 
and respect are worth the having, if they had turned their 
energies to occupations for which they were intended by nature, 
and been willing to labor, " working with their hands the thing 
that was good ? " 

The Apostle comes to the disciples of Christ with a com- 
mand which, if heeded, will set this matter all right, so far as 
they are concerned. But in giving this command, he had in 
view, not so much their material interests, — for these he knew 
would take care of themselves with such living as he enjoined, 
— but he had in view the unseemliness and guilt and offensive- 
ness to God's Holy Spirit, of such lives by those whom this 
Spirit had regenerated, and new created, that they might be- 
come men in Christ Jesus, by developing true manliness of 
character, and living lives of true nobility in carrying out the 
will of Christ and conforming themselves to his example. This 
was uppermost in the Apostle's mind ; and it was because he 
saw the matter in this light, that he held up an idle and dis- 
honest life before us as an offense to the Holy Spirit, and 
warned us not to grieve Him by living such lives. 

2. Next after the command touching an unworthy method of 
life, the Apostle introduces the command against an unbecom- 
ing method of speech : " Let no corrupt communication pro- 
ceed out of your mouth." The word which Paul wrote is very 
emphatic. " Let no putrid utterance fall from your lips." 
His reference is to unclean speech of all descriptions, and the 
word that he has chosen represents it as the vilest and most 
revolting of all things to the mind of God. Such speech is so 
utterly abhorrent to all the teachings of the gospel, so utterly 
at variance with every prompting of the Spirit of Christ, that 
we cannot conceive of God's Holy Spirit dwelling for a mo- 
ment in the heart of one who is given to it. Our Lord has 
told us that it is " that which proceedeth out of the mouth of 
a man that defiles him ; " and the Apostle says of all believers, 
that they are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
dwells in them. Then he solemnly declares, "If any man 
defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." Such speech 
is therefore a defilement of God's temple, the dwelling-place of 
his Holy Spirit. 

There is no need of multiplying words upon this point. 



286 On G-rieving the Holy Spirit. [Serm. xxx. 

Every one who has come to know Jesus Christ, and feel the 
influence of his life and Spirit, — and every one has who has 
become his disciple indeed, — has come to feel, by a spiritual in- 
stinct, the utter unbecomingness of such language as is here- 
condemned. Every prompting of his renewed nature rises up 
to rebuke and shame it. The presence of the least spiritual 
life in him will make him know that such language coining 
from the lips of a disciple, cannot but be insufferably offensive 
to the indwelling Spirit of God. 

What the Apostle enjoins is, that all such words be eschewed 
as corrupting and defiling, — corrupting and defiling not only 
him who utters them, but those also who hear them. On the 
contrary, let all the words of a disciple of Christ be pure and 
healthful. If he speaks at all, let him speak that which is good 
to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers. 
So only can he be pleasing to the Holy Spirit of God, and hope 
to have his presence and favor. 

3. The command that follows our text, as a further specifica- 
tion of the manner in which the Holy Spirit is grieved by the 
disciples of Christ, is simply a repetition of the command of our 
Saviour upon which we dwelt a few Sabbaths since. " When 
ye stand praying, forgive if ye have aught against any, that 
your Heavenly Father may forgive you." It covers the whole 
spirit and temper of a disciple of Christ towards all with whom 
he has to do, and especially towards his fellow disciples : " Let 
all bitterness, and wrath, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put 
away from you, with all malice : and be ye kind one to another, 
tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's 
sake hath forgiven you." 

Here, as in each of the other commands, there is not only a 
negative, but a positive side. Not only is the specified evil for- 
bidden, but the opposite virtue is commanded. It is not, as is 
too often supposed, all of Christian duty to refrain from bitter- 
ness of spirit and anger and malice ; to be a true Christian 
one must go further, and be positively kind and sweet-tempered, 
really and truly tender-hearted, sincerely and cordially forgiving 
in his spirit towards his brethren. The not doing of the latter, 
not less than the doing of the former, is an offense to God. 
The one will check and hinder all growth in grace, and all 
development of Christian character ; the other will exclude 



Kph. iv. 30.] On G-rieving the Holy Spirit. 287 

grace from the soul, and make the character a moral deform- 
ity. In either case the sight becomes offensive to God ; and 
grieves his Holy Spirit. That Spirit has a right to expect the 
temper and mind of Christ in one whom He has renewed, and 
sealed for Christ and for heaven. He has a right to expect 
beauty and loveliness of soul where He has given grace. He 
cannot but be grieved, therefore, when instead of the spirit and 
mind of Christ, He beholds the spirit of a demon. Where He 
looks to find the fruit of grace and of a renewed heart, He finds 
the outgushing of sin and depravity, and all evil, showing the 
heart which was once purified, become a cage of unclean birds. 
He cannot but be grieved. As He loves the believer, as He 
cherishes him for Christ, as He looks to him as an heir of 
heaven, He cannot but be saddened and pained. 

Such are some of the ways in which the disciples of Christ 
grieve the Holy Spirit of God. They are the ways which the 
Apostle himself has clearly pointed out. There is nothing dark 
and mysterious about them ; but they have to do with the 
commonest concerns of life, and the every-day intercourse of 
believers with each other and with the world. Everything 
that is unbecoming in a disciple of Christ while attending to 
these concerns, or mingling in this intercourse ; everything that 
is wrong and unjust in conduct ; everything that is impure in 
speech ; everything that is unchristian, unlovely, ungracious in 
spirit, is a grief to the Holy Spirit of God. 



SERMON XXXI. 

DANGER OF FALLING. 



1 Cor. x. 12. — Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. 

nnHIS " wherefore " refers to the preceding verse : " Now all 
-■- these things happened unto them for ensamples : and they 
are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the 
world are come." 

The things that thus happened for examples to us, and that 
are written for our admonition, were the idolatries, tempting 
Christ and murmurings of the children of Israel, while they 
were on their way from Egypt to Canaan. God was displeased 
with many of them on account of these things, and they were 
" overthrown " in the wilderness. They were slain by the 
sword, they -were destroyed by serpents, they were carried 
away by the pestilence. 

All these who had thus perished had departed from the land 
of Egypt full of hope, confidently expecting to be among the 
number who would enter the land of promise. But they failed 
of their expectation, their hope was made vain, they perished 
in the wilderness, because they fell off from their allegiance to 
God and walked in ways of sin. They thought themselves 
secure in God's favor. But they forfeited it and were lost. 
They counted upon an inheritance among the people of God. 
But they let it slip from their possession while they were grasp- 
ing for the inheritance of the wicked, and their title was an- 
nulled forever. 

God has turned their sin and failure into a means of good to 
us, and a help to our salvation, by setting them before us as ex- 
amples, and pointing us to them for our admonition. It is in 
view of them that the Apostle writes the command, M Where- 
fore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." 

None of us can have a better prospect that his hopes will be 



l Cor. x. 12.] Banger of Falling. 289 

realized, none of us can feel himself more secure than did these 
Israelites. Yet they fell and miserably perished. The argu- 
ment of the Apostle is that every believer needs to keep a vig- 
ilant watch and be constantly on his guard, lest he too fall into 
sin, and, incurring the divine displeasure, fail of heaven. Here, 
as elsewhere, the Apostle, like the other sacred writers, recog- 
nizes the ever-present liability of all, even the holiest, while 
they are in a world of temptation and sin, to fall into sin and 
compass their own ruin. " Let no man be counted happy," 
says a heathen proverb, "while he lives." The reason is that 
while he lives he may by some rash or guilty deed bring him- 
self into disgrace and ruin. It is this very thought that is in 
the Apostle's mind when he is writing the command before us. 
He had it in mind also when he wrote those remarkable words 
regarding himself in the chapter preceding this, " I keep under 
my body, and bring it into subjection lest that by any means, 
when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast- 
away." Our Saviour had the same thought and repeatedly 
impressed it on the minds of his disciples, in those words of 
warning and of promise, " He that shall endure unto the end, 
the same shall be saved." And in those other words, "He that 
putteth his hand to the plough, and looketh back, is not fit for 
the kingdom of God." 

The doctrine of our text, then, like that of all the New Testa- 
ment and of the Old, is, that no one who is numbered among 
the people of God is to count himself free from the danger of 
falling into sin while he remains in this world ; nor, if he falls 
into sin and continues in it, is he to count himself exempt from 
the liability to suffer its direst consequences. The fall and the 
ruin of the children of Israel are the example to which God 
Himself points him, to admonish him of his danger, and arouse 
him from the indulgence of a false security. As they fell, so 
may he. As their sin ruined them, so will his ruin him if he 
clings to it and lives in it. " Wherefore let him that thinketh 
he standeth, take heed lest he fall." 

I invite your attention to a few of the many ways in which 
the professed friends and followers of Christ are manifestly lia- 
ble to fall into sin, and continue in it to their own ruin, as rea- 
sons why they should take heed as they are commanded to do 
by our text. I mention these because, though plain, yet they 

19 



290 Banger of Falling. [Serm. xxxi. 

are seldom dwelt upon as sources of danger when the subject is 
under consideration. 

Though they claim to be governed by the truth which Christ 
has taught, and to be conformed to the righteousness both of 
heart and life which He requires, they may disobey the truth 
and become unrighteous, because they have not in them an 
honest love of truth and righteousness. 

It has not required many years of earnest and thoughtful life 
to convince every candid observer of the working of his own 
mind, that there is a fearful amount of truth in the words of the 
prophet Jeremiah when he declares that " The heart is deceit- 
ful above all things." Such a man has come to realize that it 
is not always an easy task to know precisely what the govern- 
ing motive of his conduct is in very many of the circumstances 
and relations of his life. He has found that he has oftentimes 
been taking to himself credit for being actuated by one class of 
motives, when, as a matter of fact, a class of motives very dif- 
ferent and far from praiseworthy, has prompted all that he 
has done. He has learned that it is no uncommon thing for a 
man to claim, and perhaps to think with no little certainty, 
that he really loves some things toward which he is, in truth, 
indifferent ; and some toward which he has a deep-seated and 
abiding aversion. To his surprise and chagrin, perhaps, he has 
discovered, e. g., that he himself has been for a long time mis- 
taking a devotion to his own personal interests as connected 
with the prosperity of some good cause, for a sincere devotion 
to that cause itself. He has labored hard for its advancement 
and success ; all the time supposing that nothing was nearer 
his heart ; and having the credit of a disinterested advocate 
and helper of its prosperity. But some change in his circum- 
stances, or in his relation to the cause itself has come. His 
zeal flags ; his interest ceases ; to his astonishment he discovers 
that that which has been first and last in his thoughts as the 
days opened and closed, has dropped out of his mind, and fails 
any longer to enlist his feelings or his regards. He inquires 
into the 'reason -of all this, and the truth flashes upon him that 
the change in his circumstances, or in his relation to the once 
cherished cause, has made it unnecessary or impracticable for 
him longer to seek his own personal interests in its prosperity. 
Here is the secret of his waning zeal and of his indifference. 



l Cor. x. 12.] Danger of Falling. 291 

If he is a man that wants to deal honestly with himself he will 
not stop with this discovery. He will press the matter one 
step further, at least, and compel himself to confess to his own 
conscience that he has all the time been imposing upon himself, 
and acting a most unworthy part in the interests of self, under 
the pretense of unselfish devotion to that which was good and 
noble. The selfish motive ceasing to operate, and there being 
in him no real love to the cause, he will most likely desert it. 

Now if one's interest in the cause of Christian truth and 
Christian living is of this kind, he is in constant danger of fall- 
ing. Just to the extent that other than motives of sincere 
devotion to Christ and his cause get possession of the mind, 
there is increased liability to make shipwreck of all the interest 
that one has in that cause. If this sincere devotion is wholly 
wanting in the mind of one who professes to be Christ's, he 
will be almost certain, sooner or later, to fall openly away from 
Him. If this devotion exists within him, but is weakened and 
kept down by the indulgence of selfishness in any form, then 
there is a constant danger, a fearful liability, of falling into 
positive and fatal sin. The soul is then all exposed to every 
form of temptation. Its spiritual vision becomes beclouded ; 
its powers of discernment become blunted ; its strength to resist 
evil is weakened. It will be a miracle of grace if it does not 
follow the examples by which God has warned it, and bring 
upon itself irretrievable ruin. 

It was in view of such a danger as this that the Apostle 
wrote, in the chapter following the one that contains our text, 
" Let a man examine himself ; " and again in the Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians, " Examine yourselves, whether ye 
be in the faith ; prove your own selves." You may profess to 
be in the faith, and yet be lacking in every quality that makes 
the character of a genuine believer. You may account your- 
selves to be something, which the honest proving of yourselves 
will show you to be utter strangers to. 

If the truth regarding many who, professing the love of truth 
and righteousness, have denied the truth and turned to iniquity, 
could be known, it would be seen that they never loved the 
truth, nor ever cherished righteousness in their hearts. Some 
other motive has influenced them, and while they stood before 
the world as friends of Christ, they were in reality his enemies. 



292 Danger of Falling. [Serm. xxxi. 

Thus he is often " wounded in the house of his friends ; " but 
by those who had no right to be in that house. Thus often 
the cause of truth is made to suffer, and its good name brought 
into reproach, by those who, though standing before men as its 
champions, were never in heart loyal to it. They have fallen, 
and their fall has been counted a fall from the truth when in 
fact they were always enemies and aliens, though perhaps 
thinking themselves and others thinking them to be friends. 

None of us can be sure that we are not of this number 
without the most thorough self-searching. Self-deceit is not 
dislodged by gentle means. Again and again, and with an 
honesty of purpose that will stand the test of the final judg- 
ment, must the soul be brought into the light, and tested by 
the Word of God before its self-deceivings can all be destroyed, 
and its sincerity in its attachment to the truth be demonstrated 
to itself. Let each one of us, then, who thinks himself to be a 
lover of the truth, and of righteousness, take heed to himself 
at this point, lest, from a lack of thorough honesty with him- 
self he be found destitute of the love of the truth ; and, pre- 
suming upon what he does not possess, he fall away from 
Christ and bring ruin to his soul. Let each one take heed lest 
through the weakness of his love to that which is right and 
true, he be taken in the snare of the adversary, and become 
like those with whom God was not well pleased, and therefore 
they were overthrown in the wilderness. If, on a searching 
examination of our own hearts, and a sober and candid judg- 
ment upon our lives, we find ourselves to be lacking in whole 
or in part, in honest devotion to Christ, and obedient submis- 
sion to his authority, let us not rest until this lack is supplied, 
and we can each of us say, with the fallen but recovered Peter, 
w Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love 
thee." There is no other safeguard. It will be in vain that 
we take heed, if the beginning is not made at this point. 

2. Those who profess allegiance to Christ are in constant 
danger of falling into that which will offend Him and bring ruin 
upon their souls through the indulgence of a spirit of pride and 
self-conceit, touching their supposed virtue. The indulgence 
of such a spirit is of itself most offensive to Him. Scarcely 
anything else is more severely condemned in the Scriptures. 
" Pride and arrogancy do I hate," says God. " The proud he 



l Cor. x. 12.] Banger of Falling. 293 

knoweth afar off." And here is the beginning of the danger 
which comes from the indulgence of such a spirit. He who in- 
dulges it is an offense in the sight of God. God removes far 
from him, and leaves him to himself. There is hardly a pos- 
sibility, therefore, that he will not fall into temptation, and be 
carried away by it. 

This spirit works insidiously. It puts on deceptive garbs, 
and reigns supreme in many a heart where its presence is 
hardly suspected. In those who have #ny regard to the name 
and standing of Christian, it is almost always sure to hold its 
dominion under the form of some Christian virtue. You will 
therefore see some men, and sometimes really good men, 
making an idol of their goodness in some one or more of its 
phases. They lift it up before themselves, and pay it their 
devout homage. And not only so ; they are not satisfied with 
worshipping it themselves, but they exact homage to it from 
others also. A man, e. g., fancies himself a paragon of honesty. 
He takes pride in the thought of his honesty. The more he 
thinks of it, the more he seems to himself to excel all others in 
this virtue. He is quite sure that there are few men in the 
world so honest as he is. Self-conceit begins to work ; and, 
with self-conceit, low and disparaging views of others. Like 
those whom our Saviour rebuked by the parable of the Pharisee 
and the Publican, he begins to " trust in himself that he is 
righteous, and despise others." His very honesty thus opens 
the door to all dishonesty. His pride and self-conceit because 
of his great honesty have already crowded him into this door, 
and there can be no certainty that he will not at any moment 
yield himself unreservedly to some open and disgraceful deed. 
For he who has come to despise others who are as good, and 
perhaps better, than himself, because he thinks himself to be 
better than they, has already begun to treat them dishonestly. 
He has already begun to trample on their rights. He takes 
from them, in his thoughts, what belongs to them, and begins 
to appropriate it wrongly to himself. What but outward 
restraints will keep him from doing openly and tangibly what 
he is thus doing secretly, and in his thoughts ? 

It is the same with every other good quality which is ex- 
alted to be an idol, and for the supposed possession of which one 
begins to take to himself pride, and to indulge in self-conceit. 



294 Danger of Falling. [Serm. xxxi. 

Self -exaltation becomes the beginning of self -degradation. The 
soul is deteriorated by it, and soon will come to lose whatever 
relish or real goodness it had at the start. It becomes hard, 
censorious, self -flattering. Its moral tone is lost. Its spiritual 
health is undermined. Its strength to resist evil is weakened ; 
and the words of the inspired writer are almost sure to be 
verified in its history, " Pride goeth before destruction ; and a 
haughty spirit before a fall." 

We find here an explanation of that strange phenomenon 
which every observer of men and things as they are, has often 
noticed, and wondered at, — the fact that so many men fall into 
the very evils and sins against which they have seemed to be 
most strenuously opposed ; against which they have often in- 
veighed with special vehemence ; and for their antagonism to 
which they have seemed to take to themselves special credit. 
The most inveterate smokers I have ever known, were men 
who had been loudest and most bitter in their denunciation of 
the users of tobacco. In season and out of season they were 
wont to act the part of censors and denouncers of both the 
plant and all who used it in any form. 

The most disgraceful cases of violation of the seventh com- 
mandment that I have ever known, those that were marked by 
the most degrading and disgusting demoralization, were in men 
who had made the violation of this command the object of their 
special denunciation, and had claimed for themselves more than 
common virtue in its observance. 

Some of the most lamentable cases of dishonesty in business 
that have ever come under my observation have been in men 
who prided themselves on their integrity, and the possession of 
so much ability and virtue that they claimed by their whole 
bearing, if not in so many words, that they could never fail in 
business, and never forfeit the confidence or ruin the interest of 
those who trusted them. 

But in all these cases, if one observed carefully the spirit 
of the men, he saw not simply antagonism to the wrongs in- 
veighed against, but a certain air of self-gratulation, self-as- 
sumption, and self-conceit, a taking of special pride in their 
supposed exemption from these particular sins, and an evident 
purpose to impress him with their superior virtue in these 
directions, and extort from him homage on account of it. 



l Cor. x. 12.] Banger of Falling. 295 

Like the Pharisee they seemed ever to be saying, " Lord, I 
thank thee that I am not as other men are," and ever to be 
wishing to make every one who came into their presence feel 
that they would not hesitate to finish the Pharisee's prayer, 
and pointing to the observer, say emphatically and patron- 
izingly, " or even as this publican." His moral strength was 
thus seen to be impaired. Familiarity with this particular 
form of sin, when there was either an entire want of love of 
holiness, or if there was any love of holiness, it was overborne 
and pushed aside by this spirit of pride and self-conceit, has 
brought him at last to be on good terms with the very thing 
that he seemed to hate. 

Besides all this, if one is a child of God, though he may 
not be utterly given over to the consequences of his own folly 
and wickedness, in indulging such a spirit, yet he is often left 
to fall into the very sins that he has prided himself in de- 
nouncing, that by his fall his pride may be the more effectually 
crushed, and the soil of his heart be the better prepared for the 
growth and culture of humility. It is terribly galling to one's 
good opinion of himself, if he is not lost to all sense of shame, 
to find himself a victim to the very form of sin which he has 
made it his special business to denounce, and for being free 
from which he has often " thanked God that he was not as 
other men." Men can never come into this wretched con- 
dition but through a course of foolish pride, and most offensive 
self-conceit. It is God's judgment on these when they find 
themselves there. Let him that thinketh he standeth in any 
or all virtues, take heed lest through his pride he fall and come 
into ruin ! 

3. I notice but one other source of danger which makes the 
Apostle's exhortation applicable at all times and to all ; men 
are in danger of falling into ways of sin, and of ruining their 
souls, by making to themselves a false application of the truth. 
This source of danger has been implied in the other two that 
we have mentioned. Neither of those, in fact, prevails without 
more or less aid from this. Yet there is here a special danger 
which ought to be considered, and carefully guarded against. 

The Scriptures are preeminent in their bold and sharp clas- 
sification of character. They always presuppose a regard to 
this classification in all they say of privilege or promise or 



296 Danger of Falling, [Serm. xxxi. 

curse or threatening. Every privilege is declared, and every 
promise is made, with a definite character in view in those for 
whom the privilege exists, and to whom the promise is given. 
Those who have not this character have no right to the privi- 
lege, nor any inheritance in the promise. 

The danger is, that those who lack the character will claim 
the privilege, and count themselves interested in the promise, 
and thus, depending for support on that which has no existence 
for them, fall away and be lost. 

A man counts himself one of the elect, and because he counts 
himself this, takes to himself the privileges which are declared 
and promises which are made to believers only, — kept by the 
power of God, through faith. He counts on being kept though 
destitute of faith. He is sure sooner or later to fall and be 
lost. 

One who rejects Christ as the Lord of his soul, and its Re- 
deemer from sin, reads what is said of those who are in Christ, 
and though out of Christ, claims for himself all that he reads. 
Not serving Christ, he does not receive the aid promised to his 
servants — and falls. 

One reads what is said in the one hundred and third Psalm, 
of the mercy of God to those that fear Him, but passing over 
the divine limitation, applies all that he reads to himself, 
though destitute of every characteristic that enters into this 
limitation. The mercy of God promised and vouchsafed to 
those who fear Him, fails those who fear Him not. 

So one reads what the Apostle says in the eighth of Romans, 
that " all things work together for good to them that love 
God," and though utterly devoid of all love to God, says of all 
that happens to him, " It is for the best." He is ruined through 
a false application of the truth. 

One reads our Saviour's words, " Ye are my friends if ye do 
whatsoever I command you," and, disregarding entirely the 
qualifying clause, calls himself a friend of Christ, though his 
whole life is one of disobedience to Christ's commands ; and 
that too though the Lord has so pointedly asked, " Why called 
ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I command you ? " 
If such a one does not fall now, yet in the judgment the Lord 
assures us that He will say to him, " I never knew you. De- 
part from me." 



i Cor. x. 12.] Banger of Falling, 297 

One reads the Lord's solemn declaration, " No man can serve 
two masters ; " " ye cannot serve God and mammon," yet 
makes mammon the god of his heart and life, and stills calls 
the Lord his God. 

One reads, " The friendship of the world is enmity with 
God ; " "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is 
not in him," yet claims to be a lover of God, though devoting 
all his soul to the world, loving it with his whole heart. By a 
false application of the truth itself, all these fall and perish. 
Yet the way of safety, and the road to heaven, are so plain, 
that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. 
Only take heed ; but take heed not in your own strength and 
wisdom. He that trusts in his own heart is a fool. " I am 
the way, the truth, and the life," says our Saviour. There is 
safety only in Him — in his wisdom — in his protection. We 
take heed wisely only by looking unto Jesus. 



SERMON XXXII. 

THE TWO GREAT CERTAINTIES OF THE GOSPEL. 



John vi. 37. — All that the Father giveth me shall come to me ; and him that cometh to 
me I will in no wise cast out. 

THE circumstances in which these words were spoken give 
them a peculiar interest. Our Lord had wrought a most 
impressive miracle in the presence and on behalf of those whom 
He was addressing. With five barley loaves and two small 
fishes He had fed them, to the number of about five thousand 
men, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. This miracle 
so affected them that they were ready to lay hands on Him, 
and by force make Him a king. When He perceived this He 
left them and went away into a mountain, and when night 
came He crossed the sea and came to Capernaum. The next 
day many of those whom He had fed followed Him to this side 
of the sea. But when they found Him they showed, by the 
manner in which they accosted Him, and by their whole bear- 
ing, that they were under the influence of low and unworthy 
motives in following Him. They were not elevated, nor ear- 
nest and sincere in their spirit. Jesus saw this, and therefore 
rebuked them, saying, " Ye follow me, not because ye saw the 
miracles ; but ye seek me because ye did eat and were filled." 
Although they had seen Him do works that no man not sent 
from God could do ; and heard Him speak as never man spake, 
yet they did not believe in Him. Their minds were so con- 
trolled by what was merely temporal and earthly that every- 
thing they had seen and heard had failed to arouse them to 
serious thought, or to awaken within them any appreciation of 
his true character, or of their own deep spiritual necessities. 
This failure and their unbelief gave tone to the entire conver- 
sation which our Lord held with them. He recognized the 
fact that nothing He had said to them or done in their pres- 



John vi. 37.] The Two Great Certainties of the G-ospel. 299 

ence had made any saving impression on their minds ; and 
hence He said to them, in the verse preceding our text, " Ye 
also have seen me, and believed not." 

This is said with manifest sadness. Ye also, even ye who 
have seen and heard so much that ought to have impressed you 
.deeply, and moved you to faith, have seen me, and, like almost 
all the rest who have seen me and been appealed to by my 
words and miracles, have not believed. His mission and min- 
istry among men, judged by their results thus far, would be a 
failure. Almost none of those to whom He ministered be- 
lieved on Him ; almost all turned from Him to perish in their 
sins. It seemed as though all his labors were to come to 
naught. 

This was the way matters looked, if only present results 
were regarded, and there was nothing to change the aspect of 
the case nor awaken hope, unless some other agency should 
come in than any that had yet been employed. If the issue 
was to rest solely with men themselves they would certainly 
all reject Him, and make his great enterprise in their behalf 
an utter failure. Ye also, like those in Judea and in every other 
place where I have preached and wrought the signs of a mes- 
senger sent from God, have seen me and not believed. What 
reason was there to suppose that matters would ever be any 
different ? 

But there is another view of the case, and in our text the 
Saviour turns to it ; his Father is interested in his great under- 
taking. All these perishing millions who turn from Him in 
apathy and stolid unbelief are under his control. He has the 
right and the power to do with them as He will. All men be- 
long to Him as his creatures, and, as He had the right to do, 
He has given to his only begotten Son a multitude from among 
them which no man can number, — and these shall come to 
Him ; these, when they see Him will believe in Him. Millions 
whom He calls, and whom, if they would come to Him, He 
would most gladly receive and faithfully save, may turn a deaf 
ear to his call, and trample all his instructions and offers of 
mercy under their feet, but they shall not make his mission a 
failure. Though all these reject Him, and perish because they 
reject Him ; and thus, so far as their salvation is concerned, 
make his mission a failure ; yet there are other millions, even 



300 The Two Great Certainties of the Gospel. [Serm. xxxii. 

more than can be counted, who will not reject Him. They 
have been given to Him by his Father ; and they will come to 
Him and be saved. He will not therefore labor in vain, nor 
spend his strength for naught. 

That this is the bearing and spirit of the first clause in our 
text, becomes still more manifest when we read the two im- 
mediately succeeding verses, the thirty-eighth and thirty- 
ninth : " For I came down from heaven, not to do my own 
will but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's 
will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I 
should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last 
day." 

In coming to this world, then, our Saviour did not come alone 
to save the lost ; but He came to do his Father's will in saving 
them. It is the Father's will that every soul that will look to 
the Son for help and believe on Him, shall have everlasting 
life through Him. But multitudes will not look to Him nor 
believe in Him. In spite of all his tender appeals and faithful 
warnings, and loving invitations and promises, they will reject 
Him. But there are some who will not reject Him. There 
are some who will look to Him for help, and believe on his 
name. The Father has given Him some, and though all others 
turn away from Him these will not. The Father has given 
them to Him to be saved, and it is the Father's will that not 
one of them shall be lost. The work of saving them will be 
the joy of the Redeemer's heart ; but greater and more absorb- 
ing than even this joy is that which comes to Him from doing 
his Father's will in saving them. They will come to Him, — 
the gift of his Father makes this sure : and when they come He 
will save them, — his devotion to his Father's will as well as 
his own love for them make this sure. This is the meaning of 
our text : " All that the Father giveth me will come to me ; 
and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." 

This text brings before our minds, then, the two great cer- 
tainties of the gospel. Let us look at them for a moment. 

1. Whoever, and how many soever reject Christ, yet enough 
will come to Him to make the gospel gloriously triumphant in 
the world. Our Saviour's words were evidently uttered in a 
spirit of triumph. The words of the previous verse are de- 
spondent, but these are not. They were put in as an offset to 



John vi. 37.] The Two Great Certainties of the Gospel. 301 

what was in itself discouraging and hopeless. He saw all that 
was of this character clearly, but amid all He saw also the 
faithfulness of his Father, who had said, " Ask of me and I 
shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utter- 
most parts of the earth for thy possession." Amid it all, and 
amid all the darkness and discouragement of his whole career 
on the earth, even down to the moment when He cried, " It is 
finished," and gave up the ghost, He was perfectly sure that 
the prediction of the prophet Isaiah would be fulfilled, " When 
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, He shall see his 
seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord 
shall prosper in his hands. He shall see of the travail of his 
soul, and be satisfied. He shall justify many ; for He shall 
bear their iniquities." 

This is one of the most encouraging thoughts connected with 
the mission and work of Christ. He entered upon them in no 
uncertainty as to the results, and with no possibility of failure. 
Had success depended solely on those to whom He came, and 
for whom He suffered and died, there could have been no cer- 
tainty that* any would be saved. Every sinner might have 
turned away from Him in unbelief, and all his work would 
have been in vain. Left solely to themselves, it was not possi- 
ble to know with certainty that one of all the perishing host 
would turn from his sins and seek the forgiveness that th« 
atonement of Christ would make possible for all. But when 
the result was assured by the gift of the Father, and success 
was made certain by his promise and covenant, the case be- 
came different. The Father would make his promise good. 
He would not fail in faithfulness to his covenant. There could 
be no uncertainty here. When, therefore, the Son of God di- 
vested Himself of the glory which He had with the Father 
from the beginning, and entered on his humiliation and walked 
in it through a toilsome life, through the agony of the garden, 
and through the fearful realities of the cross and the grave, He 
had this to support Him : An innumerable company of the lost 
of this world have been given me in eternal covenant by my 
Father. These will come to me. The Father cannot deny 
Himself ; He cannot be untrue to his word ; these He has 
given me ; these He has promised to me ; these, therefore, will 
come to me, and I shall look upon their ransomed souls and 



302 The Two Great Certainties of the Gospel. [Serm. xxxii. 

be satisfied. Though I am rejected by all who see me now ; 
though I am mocked by them, and spit upon, and crucified, yet, 
because the promise and covenant of my Father are sure, these 
toils, these burdens, these sufferings even unto death, this dwell- 
ing among the dead, will not fail of their reward ; I shall see 
of the travail of my soul and be satisfied. 

Our Lord often brought out this great truth in his discourses, 
and especially in his prayer for his disciples. To the obstinate 
and captious Jews at Jerusalem, who hardened themselves in 
their unbelief against Him in spite of all that He could do to 
convince and win them, He said, " Ye believe not, because ye 
are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my 
voice, and I know them, and they follow me ; and I give unto 
them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall 
any pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them 
me, is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of 
my Father's hand." In his prayer, recorded in the seventeenth 
chapter of this gospel, he says, " Father, the hour is come ; 
glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee ; as thou 
hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal 
life to as many as thou hast given Him." Again He says, " I 
have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me 
out of the world : thine they were, and thou gavest them me." 
And again he says, " I pray for them ; I pray not for the world ; 

but for them which thou hast given me Holy Father, 

keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me. 
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name : 
those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is 
lost ; but the son of perdition [is lost] ; that the Scriptures 
might be fulfilled. Father, I will that they also whom thou 
hast given me, be with me where I am." 

And this thought is full of encouragement, not only in its 
bearing on the mind of our Saviour while He was in the flesh, 
but to all who desire, and labor for the glory of Christ in the 
salvation of souls through the gospel. Their desire will not 
fail of accomplishment ; nor will their labors be lost. The 
gospel is the divinely appointed instrumentality for the salva- 
tion of all who will believe, and of the glory of Christ in their 
salvation. Many will refuse its provisions of mercy, and turn 
away from its invitations and promises, and perish in their un- 



John vi. 37.] The Two Great Certainties of the Grospel. 303 

belief ; but to guard against the possibility of a fruitless atone- 
ment, and an unrecompensed redemption, there are vast multi- 
tudes among all nations and kindreds and tongues, of whom 
the Father has made a special gift to his Son, and not one of 
all these will fail to come to Him. Others may fail, but these 
will not. Wherever among all the nations of the earth, in 
separate communities, in congregations, in Sabbath-school 
classes, these are found, they will give heed to the call of the 
Saviour to repent and turn to God in faith ; and will be saved. 
These will be made willing in the day of the Almighty's power, 
and will come to the Saviour. 

All others may come if they will. Christ died not alone for 
those whom the Father gave Him that the success of his great 
enterprise might not rest in any doubt or uncertainty, but for 
the world. " God so loved the world that He gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." And the Apostle John says, 
" Jesus Christ, the righteous, is the propitiation for our sins ; 
and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." 
" We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to 
be the Saviour of the world." 

2. This brings us to the consideration of the second great 
certainty of the gospel. The first is, that by the gift of a 
great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations 
and kindreds and people and tongues, to the Son by the 
Father, in eternal covenant, it was made certain that He would 
not suffer and die for a lost world in vain. The second is, that 
in the gift of his only begotten Son to a lost world, to be the 
propitiation of its sins, God made it certain that not one sinner 
in all that world will fail of salvation if he will seek it in the 
Son of God. This is the truth asserted in the last clause of 
our text. In the first clause our Saviour takes refuge for 
Himself in the covenant of his Father, from the depressing 
and disheartening influence of his rejection by such great 
numbers of those to whom He was ministering. In the second 
clause He opens a refuge from despair, and a door of hope to 
every sinner in the world who desires salvation and is willing 
to come to Him for it. " I shall not fail of my reward, He 
says, for those whom the Father giveth me will come to me, if 
all the world beside turn away from me ; " and then, ever 



304 The Two Great Certainties of the Gospel. [Serm. xxxii. 

tenderly miudful of the whole world for which he was about to 
lay down his life, he adds, " nor shall any one in all this world 
fail of salvation who comes to me for it." 

That this is the exact force of this clause of our text, becomes 
clear from what the Lord says in the fortieth verse. As we 
have seen, the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth verses bring out 
and reassert the fact that the success of his mission was assured 
to Him beyond a peradventure in the certainty that all those 
whom the Father had given Him would come to Him. " For I 
came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will 
of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath 
sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose 
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." This is 
what He says in the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth verses, in 
confirmation and explanation of the first clause of the text. 
" All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." In the 
fortieth verse He takes up and expands the idea of the last 
clause of the text. " And this " — this also — " is the will of 
Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and 
believeth on Him, may have everlasting life ; and I will raise 
him up at the last day." The word translated see in this verse, 
is not the same as that which is thus translated in the thirty- 
sixth verse, " Ye also have seen me and not believed." There 
the word see is a merely bodily seeing, without any going out 
of soul, without any desire or prayer or faith. But in the 
fortieth verse the word has the sense of looking with the mind ; 
and implies a voluntary turning of the thoughts to the Re- 
deemer, as the bitten Israelites perishing in the wilderness 
turned their eyes to the brazen serpent. It is a looking with 
desire and prayer and faith: "This is the will of Him that 
sent me, that every one who looketh to the Son, and believeth 
on Him, may have everlasting life ; and I will raise him up at 
the last day." 

The will of the Father, and the devotion of the Son to the 
Father's will, extend alike to all who will look and believe. 
There is no difference. Those who have been given to the Son 
in covenant, and those who have not been thus given, have 
but to look and believe, and their salvation is the will of the 
Father and the purpose of the Son : " Him that cometh to 
me," — whoever he is, wherever he comes from, — "I will in 
no wise cast out." 



John vi. 37.] The Two Great Certainties of the G-ospel. 305 

Next to the thought that the triumph and glory of Christ 
are certain, in that it is certain that a multitude which no man 
can number from all the nations of the earth will come to Him, 
and He will look upon them, and feel that in their salvation 
He has more than a recompense for all his humiliation and 
death, — next in importance and encouragement to this thought 
is the certainty that not one sinner of all the millions that are 
upon the earth can come to Christ for salvation and fail to 
obtain it. Next to the other truth, this sustains the hearts of 
those who commend the gospel to the lost, and urge them to 
turn to God and live. There are no uncertainties ; no contin- 
gencies ; there is not even a doubt. The Word of the Lord Him- 
self has settled the matter, and settled it so plainly, so firmly, so 
unequivocally, that there can be no misgivings in regard to it. 
Wherever among all the lost there is a sinner that feels his 
need of salvation, and is willing to go to Christ for it, that 
sinner will be received with all tenderness, with infinite love, 
and made an heir of eternal life. It matters not who the 
sinner is, nor what his character or deeds, nor what his circum- 
stances ; if he wants salvation, and will look to the Son of 
God, and believe in Him, he cannot be lost. 

There are no limitations. Christ feels none. It is true that 
it is the will of the Father who sent Him that of all which He 
hath given Him, he should lose nothing ; and this will of his 
Father He will most scrupulously fulfill. Not one of all the 
mighty host given Him by the Father will fail of eternal life. 
But then it is equally the will of the Father that sent Him 
that " every one who looks to the Son and believes in Him, 
should have everlasting life ; " and He will with equal scrupu- 
lousness fulfill his Father's will in this particular also. Noth- 
ing then in the Father's will puts any limit on the Son that 
He should not save all them to the uttermost that come unto 
God by Him. He does not have to ask to what class of sinners 
any one who comes to Him belongs. It is enough that he 
comes. This settles the matter. He will be received. 

There are no limitations on the ministers of the gospel. 
They have no bounds that shut them in, and confine their la- 
bors to classes of sinners. Their mission is to the lost ; and to 
them because they are are lost. Their commission is unlim- 
ited. Their business is to make known the fact that God now 

20 



306 The Two Great Certainties of the Gospel. [Sekm. xxxii. 

commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent ; and that He 
promises salvation to every one who repents and turns to Him 
by faith in Jesus Christ. As they stand before men in congre- 
gations, or deal with them singly as individuals, they are to 
know them only as sinners for whose sins the Son of God has 
made propitiation, and for whom the words of Christ stand 
unrepealed, " Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast 
out." 

There are no limitations to the lost who want salvation 
through Jesus Christ. The fact that any one wants salvation 
through Him and will come to Him for it, is all-sufficient. It 
is promised to him, and he cannot fail to obtain it. The Word 
of God would become untrue if he failed. But God cannot 
lie. He is not required to ask any question regarding the gift 
of the Father, nor regarding the class of sinners in relation to 
that gift to which he belongs. Christ has declared regarding 
him, whoever he is, whatever his guilt, whatever his relation 
to the gift of the Father, that if he will come to Him He will 
receive him. Christ says it. That is enough. If Christ is not 
to be taken at his word, then there is nothing further to be 
said. But if He is to be taken at his word, then it is as certain 
as his throne that no one can come to Him and be lost. 

Does it not follow, then, with a logic that will silence every 
quibble, and set aside every excuse, and cover every one with 
confusion in the judgment of the great day, who has, on ac- 
count of any quibble, or any excuse, refused to accept the invi- 
tations of the gospel, — does it not follow that all those who 
will not come to Christ, and believe in Him for the salvation of 
their souls, are shutting the door of hope against themselves, 
and bringing on themselves the guilt of those who have trodden 
under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the cov- 
enant wherewith He was sanctified, an unholy thing, and done 
despite to the Spirit of grace. 

This is the spirit in which you, Sabbath-school teachers, 
should go to your classes this afternoon. There are no re- 
straints on you in the offers of salvation which you are to 
make. There are none on your pupils. All is open, frank, 
fair, sincere. 

Your business is not, as it is not the business of the pulpit, 
to go outside of what is written, but to deal fairly and ear- 



John vi. 37.] The Two Great Certainties of the Gospel. 307 

nestly with what is written. The relations of the Infinite to 
the finite involve mysteries which none but the Infinite can 
fathom. These are not revealed. He who attempts to deal 
with them is sure to darken counsel by words without knowl- 
edge. Have nothing, therefore, to do with them. Recognize 
every truth as a truth, and urge its claims. 



SERMON XXXIII. 

THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDS. 



% Luke xix. 11-27. — And as they heard these things, He added and spake a parable, 
because He was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God 
should immediately appear. He said therefore, a certain nobleman went into afar 
country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten ser- 
vants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till 1 come. But 
his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this 
man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having re- 
ceived the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom 
he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trad- 
ing. Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And 
he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very 
little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came saying, Lord thy 
pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five 
cities. And another came, saying, Lord, behold here is thy pound, which I have kept 
laid up in a napkin : for I feared thee, because thou art an austere man : thou takest 
up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith 
unto him, Out of thine own mouth will 1 judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou 
knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that 
I did not sow : wherefore then gavest thou not my money into the bank, that at my 
coming I might have required mine own with usury ? And he said unto them that 
stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And 
they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every 
one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be 
taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign 
over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. 

THIS parable, though similar, in its main features, to that of 
the " Talents," recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of the 
Gospel by Matthew, is yet very different from it in its details, 
and in some of the lessons which it was intended to teach. 
That has to do only with the servants of their Lord, and applies 
directly only to the professed disciples of Christ. This has to 
do, not only with servants, but with citizens. It applies not 
only to the professed disciples of Christ, but to all other men 
also. That brings to view only the faithfulness and unfaith- 
fulness of servants to their Lord in the use of committed trusts. 



Lukk xix. 11-27.] The Parable of the Pounds. 309 

This brings these into view, but in addition to them, the alle- 
giance of subjects to their king. 

They were uttered by our Lord on different occasions and 
under different circumstances. The parable of the Talents was 
spoken on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem, and in connec- 
tion with the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem. It 
was spoken to the disciples only, and only in their presence ; 
probably only in the presence of the twelve. This was spoken 
at Jericho, fifteen miles from Jerusalem, and was addressed, not 
to the disciples alone, but to a promiscuous company. That 
was spoken in answer to the disciples' question, which they 
asked Him privately, saying, " Tell us, when shall these things 
be ? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end 
of the world ? " This was spoken because He was nigh to 
Jerusalem ; and those about Him, having become deeply im- 
pressed with the greatness and power of Jesus, began to think 
of Him as their Messiah, and to expect that He would immedi- 
ately reveal Himself in his kingly character : " They thought 
that the kingdom of God should immediately appear." 

The two parables must not be confounded with each other, 
therefore ; nor are they to be looked upon as two versions of 
the same parable. They are distinct ; and each is full of its 
own special instructions. 

Let us now look at the various parts of this parable ; and 
then endeavor to learn some of the lessons it was designed to 
teach. 

" A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for 
himself a kingdom, and to return." 

To the minds of those who heard our Lord utter these words, 
" the far country " would be understood to be Rome. Rome 
at this time was, as she had long been, " the mistress of the 
world." Her senate, or her emperors, were the king-making 
power for all the countries within her vast dominions. " Whom 
she would," says one, " she exalted to a throne ; whom she would 
she deposed." It was customary, therefore, for those who as- 
pired to the government of any country or province, to do just 
as this nobleman did, go to Rome to receive for himself a king- 
dom and to return. It was thus that Herod the Great had 
become king in Judea ; and thus also his son Archelaus re- 
ceived the government, in part, in his father's stead, after his 



310 The Parable of the Pounds. [Serm. xxxiii. 

death. They went to Rome, and, using such influence as they 
could command on senate and emperor, they were appointed to 
the government, and returned to rule over the country in which 
they had been only subjects, or, at most, rulers of an inferior 
grade. 

"And he called his ten servants and delivered them ten 
pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come." 

It is not quite correct to say " his ten servants." This im- 
plies that he had but ten servants ; and no man with only this 
number would, in those days, have aspired to be made a king 
over a province under the Roman dominion. The rich were 
wont to number their servants, not by tens, but by hundreds, 
and thousands even. The words should be rendered, " He 
called unto him ten of his servants." The number ten was a 
favorite one with the Jews, and was often used, not to designate 
precisely ten, but any indefinite number. These servants were 
chosen for the special purpose of being intrusted with their 
lord's money, and turning it to good account in his absence, 
that he might not lose the use of it ; and, doubtless, with the 
secret purpose also of testing their ability and faithfulness with 
a view to their being employed as deputies in the government 
when he should have received it. 

The word " occupy " is not used in this sense now. Except 
in connection with this parable, this use of it would be almost, 
if not quite, unintelligible. To " occupy," as here used, means, 
and this is the meaning of our Lord's word, to carry on busi- 
ness ; to traffic. He gave them the money to engage in trade 
with. It was a small sum compared with the " talents " which 
were given to the servants by the rich traveller named in the 
twenty-fifth of Matthew. The talent was worth nearly a 
thousand dollars ; the pound only about fifteen. The traveller 
moreover gave his money to his servants, in different sums, 
" according to their several ability." He knew what each one 
of his servants was able to do, and intrusted him with money 
accordingly. The nobleman gave his servants all the same 
amount ; and he would judge of their several abilities by the 
use they made of it. " But his citizens hated him, and sent a 
message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign 
over us." 

This nobleman was already in authority over these citizens. 



Luke xix. 11-27.] The Parable of the Pounds. 311 

Hence they are called his citizens. He was in an inferior office, 
but aimed at a higher one. He had a degree of authority over 
a portion of the country, and its inhabitants were his citizens. 
It was these who were unwilling to have the nobleman for their 
king. They therefore sent, not a message, — this is not the 
meaning of the word which our Lord used, — but an embassy. 
They sent this embassy, not to the nobleman himself, but to 
the king-making power to whom he had gone to apply for the 
government. They represented to the supreme government 
that they were unwilling to have him appointed to reign over 
them. They thus attempted to disparage him at the capital 
and frustrate his plans. This it was that he remembered 
against them and so severely punished on his return. 

Having received the kingdom and returned, he first of all 
commanded the servants, to whom he had given the money, to 
be called, "that he might know how much every man had 
gained by trading." The reports of three only are given. 
These are given as specimens of all. Some had been faithful ; 
others had been unfaithful ; some had shown themselves ani- 
mated by a spirit of true devotion and allegiance ; others had 
shown themselves destitute of both. Each faithful one had 
given proof of his capacity for business, and, in doing this, had 
shown how far his lord could safely trust him to act as a 
deputy in his government. Each unfaithful one had, in like 
manner, given convincing proof of his utter unfitness for further 
trusts, however great might be his abilities. His spirit was not 
right. He was not true in his heart to his lord. Though 
numbered among his servants, and treated as a servant, he had 
the heart of an enemy. " Behold thy pound which I have 
kept laid up in a napkin." 

It is the quaint remark of one of old that the unfaithful 
servant being too idle to work had no need of his napkin, and 
therefore could well spare it for the wrapping up of the idle 
pound. The napkin was the cloth which was carried by those 
who toiled, and with which they might wipe the sweat from 
their face ; but this servant, not giving himself to work, had 
no need to carry his napkin. 

His spirit of unfaithfulness is revealed, not only by the fact 
that he did not engage in business with his lord's money, but 
that he let it lie thus idle. The verv least that he could have 



312 The Parable of the Pounds. [Serm. xxxm. 

done was to put it where it would be drawing interest. And 
the knowledge which he claimed to have of the character of 
his lord made him without excuse for not making this use, at 
least, of the money. This was the view that his lord took of 
the matter, and he dealt with him accordingly. " Take from 
him the pound, which he is too unfaithful to hold longer, and 
give it to him who hath ten pounds, who, by having these ten 
pounds as the increase of the one with which he was first in- 
trusted, has shown himself worthy of being intrusted with 
more." 

The following verse is spoken by our Lord parenthetically, 
and states a general principle which is acted upon, not less in 
divine than in human affairs : " For I say unto you, that unto 
every one that hath shall be given ; and from him that hath 
not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him." Men 
are accustomed to treat those in their employ in this manner. 
The agent who gets with what he has, his principal intrusts 
with more. The agent who fails to get with what he has, his 
principal will not intrust with more, but will take away that 
which he has already given him. It is the same in the sphere 
of providence and of grace. God deals with men on precisely 
this principle in his providential appointments. As a rule, he 
who is faithful with what he has, be it money or mental abil- 
ities and acquirements, or social position and influence, he in- 
creases in it. The rich man becomes richer, the wise man 
wiser, the good man better. In grace it is the same. He who 
improves grace bestowed becomes more and more Christ-like. 
He who neglects to improve the grace given, sinks back into 
likeness with the wicked, — dwarfed and deformed in Christian 
character, and beggared in Christian enjoyments. Having 
nothing by use and improvement, he loses what he had by 
gracious gifts. 

Having now attended to his own servants, and knowing how 
he stood among them and in his pecuniary resources, he turns 
to his citizens : " Those mine enemies which would not that 
I should reign over them, — who so declared by their embassy 
at the capital, and thus attempted to bring me into disrepute, 
and bring my enterprise to failure, — bring them hither and 
slay them before me." 

The power of life and death was almost unlimited in ancient 



Luke xix. 11-27.] The Parable of the Pounds. 313 

Eastern governments ; and this ending of the parable was in 
keeping with what those who were listening to the Saviour 
were familiar. Not only were such kings wont to have their 
enemies put to death at will, as Herod had put John the Bap- 
tist to death, but to have them brought before them and slain 
in their presence. Thus it was that Joshua treated the five 
kings whom he had defeated at Gibeon. They were brought 
forth from the cave into which they had fled for refuge, and 
brought into Joshua's presence. His men of war were com- 
manded to put their feet on their necks in token of their utter 
subjection, and then they were pitilessly slain. The principle 
that seems to have been acted on in such governments, and 
that is acted on now, is that not only is there no safety to the 
government if its enemies live, but the enemies of a govern- 
ment are not worthy to live. 

Is there not something typical in this almost universal judg- 
ment of governments regarding their enemies ? An enemy of 
God's government is unworthy of life. He who continues such 
an enemy cannot live. For " sin when it is finished bringeth 
forth death." God counts the enemies to his government unfit 
to live in it ; may He not have given this same idea as a typical 
one in the constitution of earthly governments. 

Let us now give our attention to some of the lessons which 
this parable was intended to teach. 

1. In the first place our Lord taught those who heard Him 
when He uttered it, and He teaches us that it is not wise to 
act on the assumption that his coming, or the coming of the 
kingdom of God, is immediately near. It was because those to 
whom He spake thought the kingdom of God would immedi- 
ately appear that He spoke to them as He did. They were to 
understand, and we are to understand, that the great mass of 
men will live, and their destiny will be decided in the ordinary 
way, of acting on committed trusts until their characters are 
fully developed, and until they can be commended or con- 
demned, on account of the matured fruits of their actions. To 
the great mass of men there will be no interruption, no sudden 
breaking off of their duty as it has been assigned to them in 
providence, by the inauguration of any new method of govern- 
ment in the divine administration. No man is wise who allows 
himself to be swayed from the plain path of ordinary devotion 



314 The Parable of the Pounds. [Serm. xxxiii. 

to the work of life and service of God, by the idea that he is 
to be one of the few, and that his life-time is to be the pivotal 
minute in the lapse of ages, when a new order is to be estab- 
lished by the revelation of the kingdom of God, or the final 
coming of Christ to judgment. No man knows the day nor 
the hour of such coming ; and if he attempts to decide upon it 
he is pretty sure to be mistaken. But in the way of simple 
service of God and the faithful discharge of duty, he cannot be 
mistaken. In this way he is safe. Out of it he is not safe. 
Let him give himself to service and duty, and leave God's times 
in his own hands. Let him toil on patiently, and expect noth- 
ing for himself out of the common course of events, as they 
have fallen to other men, and he may hope for acceptance with 
God and a gracious reward. 

2. But, secondly, the parable teaches that though we are 
not to assume that our day of service is to be cut short by the 
coming of the Lord, yet we are to rest assured that the Lord 
will come to judgment, sooner or later. It is as certain that 
He will come again as that He has gone away. It is as certain 
that He will come to judge the world, and his people in it, as 
that the world and his people are responsible for the use they 
make of the things with which their Creator has intrusted 
them : " This same Jesus," said the two heavenly messengers 
to the wondering disciples as they stood gazing after their as- 
cended Lord, " This same Jesus which is taken up from you 
into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him 
go into heaven." " Behold He cometh with clouds," says the 
writer of the Apocalypse ; " and every eye shall see Him, and 
they also which pierced Him ; and all kindreds of the earth 
shall wail because of Him." " The Lord Jesus," says Paul, 
" shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in 
flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, 
and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

But it is not to this coming of our Lord to which we are to 
give our thoughts, upon which we are to let them dwell, and in 
anticipation of which we are to spend our time and waste our 
energies. We are to act on the certainty that He will come, 
but our thoughts and our energies are to be given to the work 
that He has assigned us to do. " Blessed are those servants 
whom their Lord when He cometh " — be it sooner or later ; be 



Luke xix. 11-27]. The Parable of the Pounds. 315 

it at the final day of this world's history, or at the death of the 
individual servant — "shall find so doing." This blessedness 
is that which our Saviour Himself pronounces on those who 
live for duty and faithful service, and not for selfish indulgence 
and idleness. 

3. The third lesson of this parable is, that our Lord regards 
those who profess to be his disciples as owing Him their un- 
divided service. They are not their own. They belong to 
Him. They are his servants. What they do, therefore, they 
are to do, not for themselves, but for Him. 

This is the uniform teaching of all the New Testament. 
Every Christian belongs to Christ, and stands to Him in the 
relation of servant, having no right to act for himself, as op- 
posed to Christ, nor for his own interests, as independent of 
those of his Lord. This is the distinction which He makes 
between his disciples and the unbelieving world. They are his 
servants ; the world are his citizens in rebellion against Him as 
their rightful king. The world owe to Him the penalty of sin 
and of rebellion ; those who have turned to Him for mercy, 
and have been received and become his disciples, have not only 
been restored to citizenship, they have also become his personal 
servants. Their lives, which were forfeited to divine justice, 
He saves from death, and then counts them as belonging to 
Him, not as mere citizens, but nearer, and for grateful and un- 
divided service. 

Hence the inference is, — and this is taken for granted by 
the parable, — that whatever possessions they have they have 
by his giving ; and they are to use them, not as possessions 
held in their own right, and for themselves ; but they are in- 
trusted with them to improve and make the most they can of 
them for their Lord. Wherever their Lord's interests will be 
subserved by them, there they are to be used. They may not 
say of anything they have, "It is mine," any more than one 
to whom you intrust money or other property to use in your 
name and solely for your interests, may say that the money or 
the property is his. It is his only as a trust for which he is 
solemnly bound, and for faithfulness in the use of which he is 
held to a strict account. He may not, he cannot, without 
great wrong, have any interests independent of those of his 
Lord ; much less can he have any that stand in rivalry to those 



316 The Parable of the Pounds. [Serm. xxxiii. 

of his Lord. He may not be inactive ; much less may he act 
against his Lord's interests. The servant in the parable was 
condemned for simple inaction. Christ will not count the dis- 
ciple innocent who does nothing, even though he claims that 
he does no harm. He owes Him service. Service he must ren- 
der, or he is unfaithful and wicked. 

4. This brings us to the fourth lesson of the text, that Christ 
judges all men, not less those who profess to be his, than those 
who are openly his enemies, by what they have done. What 
they do shows what they are. This was the criterion by which 
the nobleman judged both his servants and his citizens. And 
the nobleman in the parable is the representative of Christ 
Himself. The faithful servants showed their faithfulness by 
what they did, each with his pound. They showed it not by 
the amount that they had made by trading ; by this they 
showed their ability ; but the fact that they went to work and 
did what they could showed that they were true in their hearts 
to their lord, and that he could continue to trust them, and 
trust them in matters of graver responsibility. 

The fact that the unfaithful servant did not do what he could 
with his lord's money showed that he was not true in his heart 
to his lord, and that therefore he could not be trusted longer, 
and especially that he was not fit to be trusted with graver in- 
terests. The citizens showed what their hearts were towards 
the nobleman by saying, " We will not have this man to reign 
over us," and by sending the embassy to balk him in his en- 
deavors to get the kingdom. When he slew them, it was for 
what they thus showed themselves to be, rather than for what 
they had done ; as it was in the case of the servants. 

This is the view which the gospel always takes of men's 
works. , They are the evidences of their characters, and of 
their spirit towards the Lord. It is not that their good or evil 
deeds can affect his interests, that they are worthy of consider- 
ation. Here we find the true explanation of that apparent 
difficulty which stands in the way of so many when they un- 
dertake to harmonize the doctrine of an entirely gracious salva- 
tion with the doctrine that each man is to be judged by his 
deeds at the last day. 

Men are saved by the mercy of God, if they are saved at 
all. He graciously delivers them from their sins, and makes 



Luke xix. n-27.] The Parable of the Pounds. 317 

them heirs of heaven. He saves them sovereignly ; of his own 
good will and pleasure. Their song now is, and it will be through 
eternity, " By grace are we saved. Not by works of righteous- 
ness which we have done, but according to his mercy He saved 
us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost." At the same time they do and ever will evince the 
fact that they are saved, by fidelity in life and conduct to the 
service of Him who has saved them. If they are saved, they 
have become his servants in their hearts. They will therefore 
do the work of servants. If they do not the work of his ser- 
vants, they then show with perfect clearness that their hearts 
are not right with Him. They are still in rebellion, though 
they are counted among those that belong to the Lord's 
people. 

Our Lord puts the matter in this light again and again in 
his teachings. " Why call ye me Lord, Lord," He says, " and 
do not the things that I command ? " "If a man love me, he 
will keep my words." " A good tree cannot bring forth evil 
fruit ; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. There- 
fore by their fruit shall ye know them. Men do not gather 
grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles." 

5. A fifth lesson of the parable then is, that at the judgment 
of the last day there will be but two classes of persons, the 
approved and the condemned. He who has been reckoned 
with the servants of God, but has not been a servant of God, 
will simply be seen by his deeds to be among his enemies, as 
the unfaithful servant was seen by his deeds to be among the 
rebellious citizens. Among them he will have his place ; and 
as they are treated, so will he be treated. The enemies of God 
and righteousness cannot be approved by the judge. They 
must therefore be condemned. They cannot be treated as 
righteous, they must therefore be treated as unrighteous. 
They cannot be treated as the friends of God, because God 
cannot treat men as being what they are not ; therefore they 
must be treated as his enemies. They cannot enter heaven, 
because they have no fitness for heaven, they must therefore 
be excluded from heaven. They cannot be delivered from the 
penalty of the sins for which they have never repented, but to 
which they still cling ; they must therefore go away into ever- 
lasting punishment. 



318 The Parable of the Pounds. [Skrm. xxxiii. 

On the other hand, they who have been the friends of God 
will stand with Him in the judgment. He cannot treat them 
as being different from what they are. If they love Him, He 
cannot treat them as his enemies. If they have the hearts of 
true servants towards Him, He cannot treat them as though 
they were unfaithful. Their service on earth may have been 
very small ; their pound may have gained but another pound ; 
but this does not matter. In gaining their one pound in hum- 
ble but faithful service, they served their Lord as truly, hon- 
ored Him as highly, and developed a character as fit for heaven 
as they did who with their one pound gained ten pounds. It 
is not the amount of gain from service to which the Lord looks, 
but to the fact that the life is a service, and that therefore the 
heart of a servant is in him who bears the name. 

Again, if those who come up to the judgment have lost the 
spirit of rebels against the law and authority of God, and have 
in its place the spirit of true allegiance, He cannot then treat 
them as rebels. They may have gone deeply into rebellion ; 
but now they are loyal ; and He will treat them as they are. 
This is one of the glories of the gospel, that the penitent may 
not suffer penalty in God's government. God can, through the 
mediation of Christ, always treat men according to the char- 
acter in which they appear before Him. It is the gospel — it 
constitutes a part of its glad tidings — that " the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanseth from all sin," before a broken law, and that 
God hath " set Him forth to be a. propitiation through faith in 
his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins 
that are past." The penitent can, through the satisfaction 
which Christ has made for him to divine justice, be pardoned, 
and treated through eternity, not as a guilty, but as a pardoned 
sinner ; not as a rebel, but as loyal and true to his God. 

Among which of these two companies shall we stand in the 
day of judgment? Brethren in the Christian profession, as we 
look over our lives, what do we find ? Has our pound been 
used for the Lord, or has it been hid away in a napkin ? As 
we have acted, so have we been. As we are now dealing with 
God, so are we in his sight. 

You who are not Christ's disciples, will there ever be a fitter 
time to turn to Him and become such ? You do not intend to 
remain as you are, and in the end be found among those who 



Luke xix. n-27.] The Parable of the Pounds. 319 

say, " We will not have this man to reign over us ; " but you 
are now saying it each moment that you continue in sin and 
unbelief. Have you any reason to suppose that if you refuse 
submission to Him to-day, you will ever be found among his 
friends ? 



SERMON XXXIV. 

THE LOST CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN AND GOD'S 
METHOD OF SAVING THEM.* 



1 Cor. i. 21; Romans x. 14, 15. — After that in the wisdom of God the world by 
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them 
that believe. [But] How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard ? 
And how shall they hear without a preacher ? And how shall they preach except they 
be sent ? 

THESE words bring before us the lost condition of the 
heathen, and God's method of delivering them. I invite 
your attention to these two thoughts, as they are 'set forth in 
the several clauses of this text ; and to some of the lessons 
which they involve. 

" After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom 
knew not God." After a period, that is, of at least four thou- 
sand years. Before man sinned he was in direct and uninter- 
rupted communion with God, and knew Him through such com- 
munion. God talked with him, and he with God. But after 
the sin of Adam, and his expulsion from Paradise, this kind of 
intercourse between man and God ceased. A sinful soul could 
not thus commune with God. 

God saw fit to leave the great mass of the human family 
thereafter to themselves. They had cast Him off and pro- 
claimed themselves independent of Him. The act of sinning 
was a declaration that they were wiser than God, and able to 
pursue and find out their chief good independently of Him. He 
chose to let them try the experiment. He knew that their 
chief good lay in their knowing and enjoying Hina ; and He 
proposed to give them an opportunity to demonstrate for all 
coming generations, and perhaps for all other moral beings, 
how powerless are the unaided minds of those who have sinned 

1 Preached before the American Baptist Missionary Union, at the Michigan 
Avenue Baptist Church, Chicago, 111., May 21, 1871. 



l Cor. i. 21.] The Lost Condition of the Heathen, etc. 321 

to hold the knowledge of God, or to recover it when once it has 
been lost. 

This experiment was made in the wisdom of God. It was 
wise in God's sight, the prompting of his wisdom, thus to leave 
men for ages to the light of Nature, and to their own powers of 
observation and reasoning, to see if they would come to a 
knowledge of Him, and make Him their highest good. They 
were left also amid all the glories of those manifestations of 
divine power and skill in the creation and government of the 
world, which reveal the wisdom of God; and which would 
reveal the Godhead to any human soul that would earnestly and 
sincerely seek God in these manifestations. Rom. i. 19, 20. 

But this experiment resulted, as of course God knew it 
would, in an utter failure on the part of men. The world, by 
the exercise of its own wisdom, though flooded with the sun- 
light of God's presence and power, failed to attain to the knowl- 
edge of God. The dislike which they first indulged towards 
Him remained with them, and gave tone and character to all 
their searchings after Him. They were through all the ages as 
unwilling to find such a God as they had rejected, as they were 
to retain the knowledge of Him in the beginning. Therefore 
they read nothing aright. All manifestations that revealed 
God were perverted by them ; and the race went on, from age 
to age, plunging continually deeper and deeper into ignorance 
and darkness, until the whole world had become utterly hope- 
less and desperate. The Apostle describes its true condition in 
one pregnant sentence : " Having no hope and without God." 
Notwithstanding all its wisdom, and the diligent use of it for 
ages, the world remained in the godlessness and death into 
which their first rejection of God had plunged them. 

The remainder of this verse brings before us the method by 
which God proposed now to interpose in their behalf, after 
they had made their fatal experiment, and demonstrated so 
thoroughly, for all succeeding times, their own utter hopeless- 
ness and folly. 

" It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them 
that believe ; " or, more accurately, u by the foolishness of the 
preaching." He had just said, " Christ sent me to preach the 
gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should 
be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is, to 

21 



322 The Lost Condition of the Heathen [Serm. xxxiv. 

them that perish, foolishness ; but unto us who are saved, it is 
the power of God." What the Apostle asserts is, that this 
preaching, the preaching of the gospel, the preaching of the 
cross, which those who reject it and perish count foolishness, 
was pleasing to God. It was wise in his view, and full of 
promise and hope ; and he appointed it, therefore, to be the 
great and distinctive instrumentality in saving men, by bring- 
ing them to a knowledge of Himself. It was not foolish preach- 
ing that pleased God, but that preaching which unbelievers 
and the enemies of Christ consider foolishness. Its subject- 
matter does not please them. It is not at all in harmony with 
their ideas of wisdom. 

The form in which the subject-matter is presented does not 
commend itself to their minds as well adapted to produce the 
best results. It is too simple ; too declarative ; not sufficiently 
speculative and pretentious. Their judgment differs from God's 
judgment in the matter, because they look upon the character 
of men, and the object to be accomplished by preaching, in an 
entirely different light from that in which God views them. 
They look upon men as needing intellectual entertainment by 
preaching ; and to be put into possession of the results of fine 
thinking — advanced thinking — or of vigorous speculations, 
and startling theories or discoveries. But God looks upon 
men primarily as a guilty race. As has been well said, " Un- 
less the guilt of the pagan world can be proved, the missionary 
enterprises of the Christian Church, from the days of the 
Apostles to the present time, have all been a waste of labor. 
Nay, more, if the sin and ill-desert of the entire human race, in 
all its generations, cannot be established, then the Christian 
religion itself, involving the incarnation of God, is an attempt 
to supply a demand that has no real existence. It is no wonder, 
therefore, that the Apostle Paul, in opening the most systematic 
and logical treatise in the New Testament — the Epistle to the 
Romans, — enters upon a line of argument to demonstrate the 
ill-desert of every human creature without exception, and to 
prove that, before an unerring tribunal, and in the final day of 
adjudication, every mouth must be stopped, and all the world 
become guilty before God." 1 God thus looks upon men as a 
guilty race, groping in the ignorance and darkness that sin has 
i Shedd, Guilt of the Heathen, p. 1. 



l Cor. i. 21.] and God's Method of Saving them. 823 

brought upon them, doomed to death, resting under a fearful 
sentence of condemnation, and therefore needing, first of all, 
and above all things, forgiveness of sins, and reconciliation with 
God, and restoration to his favor. 

In order to this, it is not amusement that men require. As 
well might you talk of amusing a criminal, when, from the 
depths and darkness of his dungeon, he cries for pardon and 
restoration to the light and privileges of life. It is not specula- 
tive thought, nor fine reasoning, nor brilliant speech that they 
require. You might as well speculate, and reason, and make 
display of rhetoric for the recovery of men stricken with the 
plague. Criminals need, and if they are right-minded they 
intensely long for, a proclamation of mercy, and an offer of 
pardon. Sick and dying men need to be told of a physician 
who can heal them. Preaching the gospel is just this. It is a 
proclamation of mercy, and an offer of pardon to the guilty 
and condemned. It is the pointing of the sick and dying to a 
Physician who can heal them. Nothing else is preaching the 
gospel. This is. 

If, therefore, men do not look upon mankind as God looks 
upon them ; if they look upon them not as guilty but as in- 
nocent, or but slightly out of the way, and not under a right- 
eous and terrible condemnation ; or if they look upon them as 
naturally pure and right-minded, and not carnal and godless, 
— " the whole head sick and the whole heart faint," — from 
the sole of the foot even unto the crown of the head, having no 
soundness, but wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores, — 
wounds and sores that all human appliances have never been 
able to " close, nor bind up, nor mollify with ointment ; " if 
men look upon mankind in this light, then, of course, they will 
count that preaching to be foolishness which concerns itself 
wholly with proposing offers and assurances of pardon to the 
guilty ; and proclaiming healing and health, and hopes of life, 
to the sick and the dying. But because God looks upon men 
in the other light, and sees them in the other character, there- 
fore such preaching seemed wise to Him. It pleased Him ; and 
He ordained it, and clothed it with honor and dignity, and 
power to save them that believe. 

" But how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not 
heard?" Glad tidings are nothing to those who do not hear 



324 The Lost Condition of the Heathen [Serm. xxxiv. 

them. The provisions of mercy, and offers of pardon, are 
nothing to those who have no knowledge of them. They must 
remain still in ignorance and sorrow and death, notwithstand- 
ing all that has been done for them, and all the great and 
glorious possibilities that have been opened for them. They 
must be told of these things. They must hear them, if they 
are to be saved by believing them. 

" But how shall they hear without a preacher ? " God has 
chosen to commit the gospel to living men to proclaim. He 
might have proclaimed it by the trump of the archangel ; or 
He might have emblazoned it in letters of fire on the heavens ; 
and in such characters that every son and daughter of Adam 
could have read, and not failed to understand it. But He chose 
to do no such thing. As it pleased Him by the foolishness of 
preaching, and by nothing else, to save them that believe the 
tidings He sent them, so it pleased Him that men, and men only, 
should declare these tidings to those who are to be saved. Un- 
less men preach, the perishing will not hear. If they do not 
hear, they will never believe. If they do not believe, they will 
never be saved. 

We know not why God does not interpose in some other 
way. Nor is it necessary for us to know why He does not. It 
is enough that He does not. The gospel itself assures us that 
He will not ; and the history of the human family is a terrible 
confirmation of this assurance. The whole world remains in 
the darkness and desolation of heathenism, saving only those 
parts of it to which men have preached the gospel of Christ. 
In these parts there is light and hope. Men have heard, and 
believed, and been saved. Death reigns unchecked over all 
the rest. And it is as certain as anything can be that death 
will continue to reign over them unless, and until, men go and 
preach to them the cross of Christ. 

" But how shall they preach except they be sent ? " This is 
the practical and searching conclusion to which the Apostle's 
argument has conducted us. It is an appeal to the consciences 
of those who are addressed; that is, the disciples of Jesus 
Christ. It will continue to come home to their consciences, so 
long as his command, " Go ye into all the world and preach 
jhe gospel to every creature," demands their obedience. 

But, as an appeal to the consciences of those on whom the 



l Cor. i. 21.] and God's Method of Saving them. 825 

authority of the great commission rests, it involves this further 
question : " Whose duty is it to send men to preach the gospel 
to the heathen ? " Who is responsible for the sending ? What 
do the Scriptures teach us on this point ? 

In the first place, they make it plain that God must send 
them. It is his prerogative. If He send them not, they may 
not go. They have no tidings to carry. No man may take 
this honor upon himself. No man, no body of men, may thrust 
it upon him. The Lord has reserved to Himself the sole right 
to say who shall be the bearer of his messages of pardon and 
eternal life to the lost, as special ambassadors of Christ. In 
this day of intense but superficial aggressiveness, this great 
truth is liable to be overlooked. But the New Testament has 
made it too plain to be misunderstood. It traces the primary 
sending of the ministers of the gospel directly to the Lord Him- 
self. When He was upon the earth He Himself called whom 
He would ; and none entered the sacred inclosure without his 
bidding. The twelve were called first into the ministry and 
made candidates for the apostleship. He sent them forth by a 
special command when He would have them go and preach the 
kingdom of God. And when the twelve were not enough for 
the work that He had in hand, and others were needed, He did 
not throw the ministry open to all of his disciples, and leave it 
for any, or all, or none of them to go, as it suited their tastes, or 
convenience, or the wishes of their friends ; but He kept the 
matter in his own hands ; and by a special call, and a special 
designation, He " appointed other seventy also." And when 
the twelve and the seventy combined were still too few, He 
commanded them to betake themselves to prayer, and beseech 
" the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth laborers 
into his harvest." And after our Lord's ascension, and the 
work of inspired teaching was committed to the Apostles, they 
inculcated the same great lesson. Every grade of the ministry, 
5rom Apostles downward, they teach us, is a direct and special 
gift of God. " He gave some to the church to be apostles ; 
and some to be prophets ; and some to be evangelists ; and 
some to be pastors and teachers." Hence it was that Paul 
could appeal so solemnly to the elders at Ephesus, when he 
gave them his farewell charge. " Take heed therefore unto 
yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost 



326 The Lost Condition of the Heathen [Serm. xxxiv. 

hath made you overseers." The Holy Ghost ; not they them- 
selves ; not the church ; not councils ; not bishops ; not these 
— but the Holy Ghost. 

In an important sense, then, it is all God's work, the sending 
of men to preach the gospel. It rests with Him to convert 
them. It rests with Him to convince them of their personal 
duty and special call to become ministers. It rests with Him 
to follow these convictions with those solemn impressions of 
which they cannot rid themselves ; and which, if resisted, beget 
within them the painful consciousness, " Woe is unto me if I 
preach not the gospel ! " It rests with God so to order affairs 
by his providence that these convictions of duty can be carried 
out ; oftentimes so that they cannot but be carried out. It 
rests with God also to give, not only to these convictions of 
duty, but to these impressions, which are sometimes far more 
intense than any mere conviction can be ; the special direction 
which determines the sphere of labor to which the life shall be 
devoted. To many a called and chosen candidate for the 
ministry, the Lord speaks as plainly in regard to his field of 
labor, as he did to Paul, when " essaying to go into Bithynia, 
the Spirit suffered him not. A vision appeared to him in the 
night. There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, 
saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us ; and he as- 
suredly gathered that the Lord had called him to preach the 
gospel unto them." If the experience of many a man, who is 
now preaching the gospel to the heathen, could be known, it 
would come out that he had thus been beckoned away from his 
native land. He could find no rest of soul till he gave heed to 
the beckoning, and gathered assuredly that the Lord had called 
him to preach the gospel to the heathen. From the moment 
that he reached this conclusion, and put himself in the way of 
obeying the divine call, all was peace. The path of duty 
became a path of gladness, and prosperity of soul. He was 
thenceforth sure that God was sending him to preach the gospel 
to the heathen. He rejoiced in it as a great honor ; and it be- 
came the one, all-absorbing thought and purpose of his life. 

Thus far our way is all clear as to who shall send men to 
preach the gospel to the heathen. The New Testament is em- 
phatic ; it leaves no ground for doubt or hesitation ; God must 
send them. 



iCoR.i. 21.] and God's Method of Saving them, 327 

But as we look into the matter further, we find that this is 
not all of the answer that the New Testament gives to our 
inquiry. 

All the teachings of the New Testament involve the idea 
that all the disciples of Christ, though not official ambassa- 
dors, are all helpers in the great work of their Lord, and have 
great and glorious correspondent responsibilities resting upon 
them. The last commission has this idea plainly on its surface. 
It was the formal association of the disciples with their Lord, 
and the laying of their part of the work clearly before them. 
The division of labor among the disciples themselves, was not 
definitely stated in the commission ; but it was plainly enough 
involved. In the nature of the case some division of labor 
must be made. All could not give themselves to the ministry 
of the Word. Some must " serve tables ; " all could not be 
wholly devoted to ministering in spiritual things. Some must 
minister in carnal things, that they might have to impart to 
those whose ministry was solely in the spiritual. Paul often 
brings out this divine arrangement in the gospel ; " They that 
preach the gospel, must live of the gospel ; " and they who are 
ministered to in spiritual things, must minister carnal things to 
those who thus minister. This is the constant and emphatic 
teaching of all the sacred writers ; and it is one of the prevail- 
ing recognitions of the division of labor involved in the great 
commission, and contemplated by it. 

One very marked example is given in the inspired record, 
illustrating this division of labor, and showing that the Lord 
embraced all his disciples in the one command to go into all 
the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is found 
in the thirteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul 
and Barnabas were living at Antioch. In the church there, 
there were certain prophets and teachers. While these were 
ministering unto the Lord and fasting, the Holy Ghost said, in 
tones that could not be misunderstood, " Separate me Barnabas 
and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And 
when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on 
L hem, they sent them away. So they being sent forth by the 
Holy Ghost, departed," and went far and near, doing the bid- 
ding of the Lord, in preaching the gospel both to Jews and 
heathen. How long they were gone on this missionary excui- 



328 The Lost Condition of the Heathen [Serm. xxxiv. 

sion we do not know ; but when they returned to Antioch, 
u they gathered the church together," — the whole church, as 
being all equally interested, and equally responsible, — " and 
rehearsed all that God had done with them ; and how He had 
opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles." 

This is God's method of carrying forward his kingdom among 
men. He chooses, calls, designates the men who shall go forth 
as his ministers ; and then He bids others set them apart and 
send them. This has always been his method. It is the method 
contemplated in the great commission. It is the only practi- 
cable method. It is the only method that has ever availed to 
bring the heathen to the knowledge of God. As this method 
has been used, the gospel has been preached to the heathen ; 
the heathen have heard of Jesus Christ ; have believed in Him ; 
have called upon Him, and been saved. Just as this method 
has been neglected, or other methods been used in its stead, 
the darkness and death and desolations of heathenism have re- 
mained unchecked ; and the kingdom of Christ has made no 
advance in the world. 

It is thus the spirit and genius of the gospel that all the dis- 
ciples of Christ be either senders or sent. The Saviour struck 
the key-note of his dispensation when He said, " As the Father 
sent me, even so send I you." All are sent of the Lord ; some 
to be senders of others, as Christ Himself was sent to be a 
sender ; others to be sent by the agency of these. Wherever 
there is a Paul, or a Barnabas, who is called of God to go, 
there are, as a rule, disciples to whom God says, " Separate me 
this Paul, or this Barnabas, and send him forth in my name." 

But here another question forces itself upon our attention. 
It grows naturally and necessarily out of those which we have 
been considering. As the answering of the question, " How 
shall they preach except they be sent ?" compels us to ask, 
" Who shall send them ? " so the answering of this question, 
compels us to ask, " But how shall they send them?" Let us 
consider this question a moment in the light of experience and 
observation. As a matter of fact, how have the disciples of 
Christ sent men to preach the gospel to the heathen ? As a 
matter of fact, how must they send them, if they send them at 
all? 

1. In the first place, they must do it by bringing moral 



l Cor. i. 21.] and Grod's Method of Saving them. 329 

power to bear upon them. Every disciple of Christ, who is in 
sympathy with Him and with his work in this world, — and 
just to the extent that He is in sympathy with him, — will feel 
the necessity of giving the gospel to all who are without it. 
All who thus feel must respond to this necessity in whatever 
way it is brought before them. They must count it a matter 
of first and paramount importance that the great commission 
should be obeyed. Nothing must staud iri its way. Obedience 
to it must have precedence of everything that is worldly, or of 
minor importance. In this manner a public sentiment must be 
begotten among the disciples of Christ in favor of this enter- 
prise. It must be made to have a distinct and solemn recog- 
nition by every one, when the great question of duty is agi- 
tated by him, in deciding upon his calling in life. The tone of 
the Christian society in which he moves must force him to 
consider this question of duty in the light of the great commis- 
sion. Then, if he hears the voice of God calling him to per- 
sonal service among the heathen, this public sentiment, the 
tone of the society in which he moves, will give emphasis to 
this call ; and, by the assurance it will give him of sympathy 
and support, it will remove many of the hinder ances that would 
otherwise lie in his way, and make him hesitate to respond to 
the divine call, by giving himself heartily to the ministry of 
the gospel among the heathen. 

In this way the disciples of Christ must send forth preachers 
-of the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. They must 
thus bring a moral power upon young converts, and upon young 
men who are preparing for life, a moral power that they can- 
not resist when once they have heard the call of God, and list- 
ened to the Macedonian plea for help. 

2. The disciples of Christ must send men to preach the gos- 
pel to the heathen by bringing a spiritual and divine power 
upon them. " Prayer moves the hand that moves the world." 
Prayer was ordained of God for this very purpose. " I will be 
inquired of by the house of Israel, to do this thing for them," 
is God's interpretation of the doctrine of prayer. He will be 
moved, and He waits to be moved, by the prayers of those 
whom He has made workers together with Him in the evan- 
gelization of the world. 

We have already quoted our Saviour's command to his dis- 



330 The Lost Condition of the Heathen [Serm. xxxiv. 

ciples, " Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that He would send 
forth laborers into his harvest." This command has never been 
recalled. The disciples of Christ are to obey it, so long as they 
see a ripened or a ripening field calling for the reapers to come 
and harvest it. The very fact of want in any field is an appeal 
to Christ's disciples to pray that the want may be supplied. 
Want pleads with them to plead with God. 

Again, our Lord has commanded us to pray, in a more gen- 
eral and comprehensive manner, in regard to this matter ; and 
placed it foremost before us as an object of desire and petition 
in all our prayers : " After this manner pray ye : Our Father 
who art in heaven ; hallowed be thy name ; thy kingdom come ; 
thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." This is to be 
every disciple's prayer while God's name is profaned in any 
part of the world, while his kingdom remains unestablished 
in any land, and while his will is disregarded by any human 
being. 

But God's name will be hallowed among men, only as they 
come under the saving influences of the gospel ; his kingdom 
will come among men, only as they receive the gospel into their 
hearts by repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord 
Jesus Christ ; his will will be done among men, only as they 
make the gospel the rule of their lives, and enthrone its prin- 
ciples and precepts in supreme dominion over their spirit and 
conduct. 

To offer this prayer is, therefore, just to ask that the gospel 
may reach men, and that they may receive it and be saved by 
it. But to pray that the gospel may reach men and save them, 
is praying that the gospel may be preached to them ; and pray- 
ing that the gospel may be preached to them, is praying that 
preachers of the gospel may be sent to do it. 

This prayer, and the one that asks that the Lord of the 
harvest would send forth laborers into his harvest, come to the 
same thing, therefore, in their bearing on the matter before us. 
The disciples of Christ are to pray men into the ministry ; and 
then to send them by the might of their prayers into all the 
nations of the earth. 

3. Finally, the disciples of Christ must send preachers of the 
gospel to the heathen — with money. However belittling and 
sordid it may seem to link money thus closely with prayer, and 



l Cor. i. 21.] and God's Method of Saving them. 331 

with moral and spiritual power ; however unbecoming it may 
seem in the view of some men ; it nevertheless remains a great 
and undeniable truth, that God has thus closely and indissolu- 
bly joined them, both in his Word, and in his plans for ad- 
vancing his kingdom among men. He has alwaj^s recognized 
the fact that all his servants in this world have bodies, as well 
as souls. He has recognized the fact that their bodies must be 
fed and clothed, — gross and unromantic as feeding and cloth- 
ing may seem ; He has recognized the fact that their bodies 
must be kept healthy, and in good condition for work, — as 
commonplace and worldly as the doing of this may be. He 
has always recognized the fact, therefore, that when He calls 
any disciple to give himself up to the preaching of the gospel, 
his bodily wants must be looked out for by other disciples ; and 
that, too, not as though he was their hired laborer, but a sharer 
with them in one' common work for the same Lord and Master. 
The work is as much theirs as it is his ; and the responsibility 
to see it done is as imperative on them as it is on him. The 
New Testament, therefore, everywhere makes it the duty of 
those disciples who do not give themselves directly and for- 
mally to the preaching of the gospel, to support those who do, 
with all needed material help ; as well as to care for the poor, 
and to sustain every good and beneficent cause. This is, in 
fact, what a disciple of Christ is to make money for. Christ 
redeemed all of each disciple ; and the disciple can do nothing 
less than to consecrate all of what he is or can be to Christ's 
cause, and the work involved in doing his will. 

As a necessary result, the peculiarity of which we speak, the 
joining of money-giving with praying, must characterize the 
revelation of God's will in his Word. " Thy prayers and thine 
alms" — that is, " thy prayers and thy money-giving" — " have 
come up for a memorial before God," said the angel to Cor- 
nelius. God had respect not alone to his prayers, but to his 
money also, when He came to reward him for his fidelity, and 
make him the first-fruits of the gospel among the Gentiles. 
The Bible is full of this peculiarity. Praying and giving, lov- 
ing God and giving, being loved of God and giving, run all 
through its pages. Doubtless those who were on the right 
hand of the Judge in the great day of final reckoning had 
prayed much, all of them. Prayer is the very life of those 



382 The Lost Condition of the Heathen [Serm. xxxiv 

who so live that they will have a place at the right hand of the 
Judge on that day. They could never live nor labor without 
prayer. " Prayer is their vital breath," all through their lives. 
Oh yes ; they prayed, without doubt ; and they doubtless loved 
God and had his love shed abroad in their hearts. But when 
the Judge came to receive them, and pass sentence of approval 
and welcome upon them, He did not say a word about their 
prayers, or their love or their spiritual enjoyments. There 
was something that had cost them something, and that had 
been a measure of the sincerity of their prayers, and of the 
genuineness of their love and joy. This it was that came up 
for honorable mention. And what was it? Why, they had 
given Christ meat when He was hungry, and meat had to be 
bought with money ; they had given Him drink when He was 
thirsty ; they had kindly taken Him into their houses when 
He was a stranger and in want ; they had clothed Him when 
He was naked ; they had visited Him when He was sick ; they 
had gone to Him, and sympathized with Him and helped Him, 
and borne his reproach, when He was in prison. All this they 
had done ; and all this had taken their money. They had not 
counted religion so pure, so spiritual, so ethereal, as to be de- 
filed and dishonored by coming in contact with the common 
bodily wants of Christ, and supplying them by giving Him so 
gross a thing as money. And when they could not recall the 
humble, but glorious deeds, for which Christ praised them, He 
pointed to the redeemed around Him — the saved from all 
lands, and from among all nations, — to the poor negro slave, 
to the filthy Karen, to the debased Teloogoo, to the most de- 
graded of the heathen who had been reached by the gospel 
which their money had sent out ; and to all the suffering and 
needy, who had come up from among the poor and persecuted 
and ill-treated and neglected, — He pointed to these, and said, 
" Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, my 
brethren, ye did it unto me." 

O my hearers, that religion which Christ has given to man, 
and which will stand the fearful tests of the Judgment Day, is 
a religion that concerns itself not alone with loving and pray- 
ing, but with practical kind-heartedness, with supplying the 
bodily wants of Christ's servants, — and therefore very, very 
much with giving money. It has much to do with prayers — 
and alms. 



l Cor. i. 21.] and Grod's Method of Saving them. 333 

2. Let me call your attention to a few of the lessons which 
this subject brings before us. 

1. The work of Christian missions is the work of God. It 
is the great work in which He is engaged in this world. Noth- 
ing lies nearer his heart. It is the work that He inaugurated 
when He sent his only begotten Son into the world to make 
salvation possible. It is the work for whose sake alone the fires 
of the last great day are restrained, that they do not burst forth 
from their hidden chambers, and put an end to all human his- 
tory. God delays, and is long suffering to usward, because He 
does not wish that any should perish, but that all should come 
to repentance and live through an acceptance of the gospel. 

The work of missions is the one work by which alone the Eter- 
nal Father will make good his covenant with the Son, to give 
Him the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of 
the earth for his possession. It is the only work by which that 
great and glorious result can be accomplished which was prom- 
ised to the Son as a reward for his life of humiliation in the 
flesh, for the agonies of Gethsemane, and for the fearful death 
on the cross, — not the death of the body only, but the infi- 
nitely more fearful death of his soul, that death which was 
announced in the startling cry, " My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me ! " The work of missions is the only work 
by which the promise to this suffering One will ever be ful- 
filled, " He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied." 
The work of missions is the work by which the Almighty 
Father is now satisfying the infinite heart of the only begotten 
Son in its longings for the salvation of a multitude that no man 
can number. It has pleased God by the foolishness of preach- 
ing to save them that believe, and his work in behalf of his 
Son will never be done, saving through the instrumentality 
of what we call Christian Missions, in sending men to do this 
preaching. 

2. This introduces us to a second lesson. The work of mis- 
sions is the great work of the disciples of Christ on the earth. 
In calling them into his kingdom, God has made them workers 
together with Himself. But if they work with Him, his work 
must be their work. What He makes of paramount impor- 
tance, that they also must make of paramount importance. 
Hence it is that our Saviour now and evermore commands all 



334 The Lost Condition of the Heathen [Serm. xxxiv. 

his disciples, " Seek ye — whatever others may do — seek ye 
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness ; " and now, 
and always make it their duty and special privilege to pray, 
" Thy kingdom come." 

3. Genuine sympathy with the work of missions, and inter- 
est in it, is one of the characteristics of Christ's friends as dis- 
tinguished from his enemies. To the unbelieving, and the en- 
emies of Christ it has always appeared foolish to send men to 
preach the gospel to the heathen. They have always cried out 
against it as unreasonable. They have scouted it as hopeless 
and uncalled for. They have ever held the persons of those in 
great contempt who have gone forth to this work. Sydney 
Smith spake out the real thought and feeling of unbelief and 
enmity to the cross of Christ, when he penned those vulgar ap- 
peals to the government, in the " Edinburgh Review " in 1809, to 
" rout out the nest of consecrated cobblers " from the East In- 
dia Company's possessions ; and followed up these appeals with 
those coarse, though keen and witty invectives against the mis- 
sionaries and their supporters, for which he so richly merited 
Robert Hall's famous utterance, that " the writer had the lev- 
ity of a buffoon, joined to a heart of iron and a face of brass." 

The enemies of the gospel have always denounced the rais- 
ing of money for missionary purposes as a waste, and a burden 
on the poor. They have set themselves against it as a robbery 
of the poor and needy. The same witty but godless church- 
man spoke again for all unbelievers, when he said, in the same 
article, that " the poor, by their contribution, were pilfered of 
all their money, shut out from all their dances and country 
wakes, and are then sent penniless into the fields," etc. In 
all this the same spirit is manifested that is manifested in de- 
nouncing the preaching of the gospel as foolishness. The 
trouble is the same in one case as it is in the other, namely, 
this : These men differ with God as to the condition of the lost, 
and hence as to their wants ; and besides this, they have no 
sympathy with God in his sympathy and love and pity for 
men. They cannot, therefore, be expected to favor the great 
work by which God aims to reach men with his sympathy and 
compassion. 

But it is not so with those who have faith in Christ, and are 
his friends. They are of one mind with God respecting the 



l Cor. i. 21.] and God's Method of Saving them. 835 

condition and wants of men. They have not only hearts to 
feel for the lost, but they have spiritual discernment to see 
their condition, and the remedy for it. 

4. Finally, they who aid in sending men to preach the gos- 
pel to the heathen, are, not in word only but in deed, " workers 
together with God." If the work of missions be the work of 
God, if it be the work in which He has called the disciples of 
Christ to labor with Him, then this follows, as a matter oi 
course. And since the work of missions is the work of God ; 
and since it is the work in which He has called his people to 
labor with Him, therefore, he who aids in carrying it on, is do- 
ing the very thing that is hastening forward the fulfillment of 
God's purposes of mercy and salvation towards a ruined world. 
He is a sharer with God in bringing about the great result 
which was promised the Son in covenant : "I will give thee the 
heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the 
earth for thy possession." He is lending a hand towards the 
fulfillment of that promise, so full of hope and glory for man, 
" He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied." 



SERMON XXXV. 

WHAT IS THAT TO THEE? 



John xxi. 22. — Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is 
that to thee ? Follow thou mc 

OUR Lord had been speaking directly to Peter regarding 
the future of his earthly life, and the service which he 
was yet to render in the ministry of the gospel. But Peter 
was not satisfied with knowing what pertained to himself and 
his own duties. He wanted the Lord to give him an account 
of the work and future history of the other disciples. He had 
been commanded to act as a shepherd to Christ's sheep, and to 
feed his lambs. This was to be the business of his life. He 
was to give himself to the work of a Christian pastor and 
teacher. At the same time the Lord forewarned him that in 
the prosecution of this work he would come to martyrdom. 
The fate of the Master was awaiting the servant ; and he is 
enjoined not to shrink from it. " Follow me," the Lord said, 
" even though your following will lead you to the cross where 
my leadership brought me." 

At this point Peter's mind turned suddenly away from him- 
self and his own duties, and looking upon John, he abruptly 
asked, " Lord, and what shall this man do ? " 

In his reply to this abrupt and impertinent question the Lord 
rebuked his meddlesomeness, and called his mind back to his 
own duty, with the very distinct intimation that this, and not 
the duty of some one else, was that with which he was to con- 
cern himself, and for which alone he was responsible : "If I 
will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? Follow 
thou me." 

He does not tell Peter, not even by implication, what John 
is to do. He does not say that John shall remain till He comes. 
But the import of the reply is, that Peter's own work is enough 



John xxi. 22.] What is that to thee ? 337 

for him to attend to ; that he is not responsible for what the 
Lord requires of John, or any other disciple ; and he is not to 
make it his business to pry into it. Instead of looking after 
the affairs of others let him attend faithfully to the trust that 
had been committed to himself ; and submit with cheerful ac- 
quiescence to the lot that infinite wisdom and love had ap- 
pointed him. John's duties, and John's destiny, it did not be- 
long to Peter to consider nor to provide for. 

This reply of our Lord to the meddlesome question of his dis- 
ciple involves some important principles touching questions of 
personal duty. 

Let us look at a few of them. 

1. In the first place it is implied that every one has a work 
of some kind to do in this world. This is the general principle 
underlying all else that is involved in the reply. " If I will 
that he remain till I come, what is that to thee ? Follow thou 
me." " John has his mission ; you have yours." Peter's ques- 
tion, as the Lord's answer, was based on a recognition of this 
principle. He assumes it as a matter of course upon general 
principles that John has some work assigned him. " Thou 
hast designated mine ; and now, Lord, what is his ? The Lord 
admits the assumption. He allows that John has a work to 
do, as a matter of course. But it is not for Peter to concern 
himself with it. 

This principle is everywhere recognized in the Scriptures. 
Their general teachings and their special doctrines all imply it. 
Each man was made " for an end." He was endowed with 
faculties, and placed in a sphere where they could be exercised 
with a purpose. He is to use his faculties and turn them to 
good account in the sphere where the providence of God has 
placed him. Hence the Saviour takes as the starting point of 
several of his parables the thought that every man has a defi- 
nite work assigned him to do in the world. He may not be 
an idler or a drone in society. He may not let his faculties lie 
dormant. He may not abuse them. He must not repress 
their activity, but give them lawful scope and exercise ; other- 
wise he is represented as " hiding his talent ; as burying it in 
the earth ; as becoming a wicked and unprofitable servant." 
And Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, " For even when we 
22 



338 What is that to thee f [Serm. xxxv. 

were witli you this we commanded you, that if any would not 
work, neither should he eat." 

And this he commanded, not only on the ground of justice 
to the rest of the community, whom it would be wrong to tax 
for the support of an idler ; but on the ground of a direct re- 
sponsibility which the possession of faculties places upon each 
one to exercise them. The fact that he has ability to work is 
a clear and unanswerable demonstration that he has a work to 
do with his powers. God does not act without an end. When 
He confers on a man capacities for work, the giving of them 
is a command to make use of them. In giving them He says 
to the receiver, " Occupy till I come." To receive them and 
hold them as though they were not thus given is to suppose 
that God acts without an end. The purpose of the bestow- 
ment of capabilities for bodily and mental work is as mani- 
fest by the bestowment itself as is the purpose of endowing one 
with eye-sight. When God gives a man eyes He intends that 
he shall see. He gives them to him for this purpose. So is it 
with other capabilities. When He gives him mind or muscle 
He intends they shall be used. 

Accordingly the Scriptures constantly point us forward to a 
day of final reckoning, when God will call men to an account 
for the manner in which they have used the powers that He 
has given them. They are to be judged according to " their 
works." As they have used their powers well, or ill, or not 
used them at all, so will be their sentence and their destiny. 
There will be those who have rightly used the abilities God in- 
trusted to them. These will hear the sentence, " Well done, 
good and faithful servants." There will be those who have 
misused their faculties and perverted their powers. These will 
hear themselves denounced as wicked wasters of their Lord's 
goods, not only not worthy of any further trust, but worthy of 
severe condemnation. There will be those who have not used 
their abilities, but have let them pine away in idleness. With 
powers to do and golden opportunities for doing, they have 
done nothing. These shall be rejected from favor, and con- 
demned as slothful and profitless servants, not fit for the trusts 
they have had, and denied the enjoyment of any others. 

2. Again : this work, whatever it is, that every one has to 
do in the world is his own work. It belongs to him alone to 



John xxi. 22.] What is that to thee f 339 

do it. It does not belong to any other being in the universe. 
" If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to thee ? 
Follow thou me. Why should you look to John's work ? You 
have not to do that. Look to that which you yourself have to 
do. It belongs to you to do that. See that you do it." This 
is the spirit of our Lord's reply to Peter. It is the spirit of 
the inspired writings as they deal with all men. God has not 
only given each one a work to do, but He has made that one 
work his own and not another's. Hence the Apostle says to 
those whom he is instructing in Christian duty, " Study to do 
your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we 
commanded you." 

There is no confusion in the divine allotments and purposes. 
Each object that He calls into being has its specific uses. It is 
intended to answer a specific end. It is by combining the op- 
erations of all that He maintains the harmony of creation and 
advances toward the accomplishment of the great purpose for 
which creation was begun and is perpetuated. 

The sun has his work to do ; the moon has hers ; the stars 
have theirs. Each force that is employed in the carrying on of 
the great processes of nature has its sphere in which to operate, 
and its own results to produce. There is no confusion. There 
is no changing of places or of uses. It is not the moon's busi- 
ness, and never becomes her business, to flood the world with 
light and heat by day. Water does not take the place of fire ; 
nor does gravity do the work of electricity and of the mind. 
Each separate tree, each plant, each spear of grass, each leaf, 
stands in its own place, does its own work, fulfills the specific 
end of its own existence. Each member of each one's body, 
each faculty of his mind, has its special purpose. The foot may 
not do the work of the hand, nor the ear that of the eye. The 
faculty of reflection may not, — it cannot do the work that be- 
longs to the faculty of perceiving ; nor may the thinking and 
reasoning powers do the work of the affections. 

Such is the order, the specificness, and hence the harmony in 
the works of the Creator. Each thing subserves a definite pur- 
pose. Each has something to do, and that something is its 
own work and belongs to nothing else. 

So is it with each individual human being, unless he is out 
of harmony with everything else that God has made. The 



340 What is that to thee ? [Serm. xxxv. 

work that God expects of him is his own work, and it belongs 
to no one else to do it. If another attempts to do it he med- 
dles with that which does not concern him. 

This, I have said, is the light in which the subject is left by 
the sacred writers. They enjoin every man to do his own busi- 
ness. They condemn those who meddle with what does not 
concern them, but belongs to somebody else, as busybodies in 
other men's matters, and they command all Christians not to 
suffer themselves to come into the reproach of men by merit- 
ing this appellation. Indeed, those who thus go out of their 
own sphere to meddle with what does not belong to them in 
the sphere of another, are classed with the worst of characters, 
and treated as deserving the severest censure. Thus the Apos- 
tle Peter says to all believers, " Let none of you suffer as a 
murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in 
other men's matters," — classing busybodies in other men's 
matters with the vilest and most reprehensible. And thus the 
Apostle Paul commands Timothy not to admit a certain class 
of women into the number who were supported by the church, 
and were, perhaps, engaged in a kind of local missionary ser- 
vice, for he says they " learn to be idle, wandering about from 
house to house ; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busy- 
bodies, speaking things which they ought not." 

Then, when the Scriptures come to speak of the final judg- 
ment and of the future retribution, they keep the same thought 
prominent. " Each one," they teach us, " shall give account 
of hiruself to God." " Every man shall bear his own burden." 
" Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own 
labor." " Behold, I come quickly ; and my reward is with me, 
to give every man according as his work shall be." His work, 
and not the work of another. If his work is done, he shall 
have his reward accordingly. If it is undone, his reward shall 
fail. It matters not what else he has done, if his own work is 
unfinished, he suffers loss. 

This was the view that the Apostle Paul took of the relation 
of each man to the requirements of God, and to the work given 
him to do in this world : " I have fought a good fight," he said 
at the close of his life. " I have finished my course. I have 
kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give 



John xxi. 22.] What is that to thee f 341 

me at that day." He looks upon himself as having had a spe- 
cific work to do, and he rejoices in the fact that he has done 
just that, and that for doing it he will be rewarded by his 
righteous judge. 

3. This leads me to remark again that each one is responsi- 
ble for his own work, and not for that of any other. This is 
the principle to which our Lord appealed when He said to 
Peter, " What is that to thee ? " As though He had said, that 
lies out of the sphere of the requirements that are made of you. 
It belongs to another man to look after this, and not to you. 
The responsibility of it is his and not yours. Why then do 
you meddle with it ? 

The fact that each one's work is his own, and not another's, 
settles the question of responsibility. So also does the fact that 
the judgment of the last day and the final award are wholly 
in view of the state in which each one's own work is found. If 
one's own work has been left undone, and he claims merit and 
reward for having done the work that belonged to somebody 
else to do, the question will meet him, "What was that to 
thee ? " " Who required that at your hands ? That was not 
the thing for which you were responsible. This work, that 
comes up here undone, was all that was required of you. For 
this only were you responsible. And on the other hand, when 
the righteous appear before the Judge, it will be their own 
works alone for which they will be held accountable. Their 
finished " works will follow them," as the Apostle says, and, be- 
ing finished, will acquit them of unfaithfulness to their earthly 
responsibility. 

4. No man is responsible for the consequences of the faith- 
ful doing of his own work, and he is not to govern himself by 
any apprehension of what these consequences may be. If he 
is sure that the work to which he is devoting himself is his 
work, that he, and he alone, is responsible for the doing of it, 
and that he alone must answer to God for the faithful perform- 
ance of it, he is not bound to take heed of anything that may 
follow the doing of that which is required of him. The con- 
sequences of doing what God requires of a man are none of his 
concern. The servant is responsible only for obedience to his 
Lord's commands. It matters not on whom these consequences 
may fall, whether on others, or on himself. They may work 



342 What is that to thee ? [Serm. xxxv. 

his own death. They did so in the case of Peter. When 
the Lord gave him his charge to tend his sheep and feed 
his lambs, He distinctly told him that the work to which he 
was to devote himself would bring him to a violent death. 
But that was to have no deterring influence on Peter's mind. 
He was to go forward regardless of that. If wicked men chose 
to put him to death in return for his endeavors to do them 
good in obedience to his Lord's command, they, and not he, 
were responsible for that. If he was in the way of exact obedi- 
ence, and of legitimate service, he could not be held answerable 
for the loss of his life. 

It is the same always, and with all men, and with every class 
of consequences. Let men do the work that God has given 
them to do, and it is none of their concern what consequences 
follow. It is not necessary that any man should live ; it is 
necessary that he should do his duty. The preaching of the 
gospel, for example, will be, it always has been, not only a 
savor of life unto life to multitudes, but to other multitudes 
a savor of death unto death. For each consequent alike the 
faithful administration of the gospel is irresponsible. If men 
are saved by his ministry, to God is all the glory, as with Him 
has been all the efficiency. If men are hardened and perish 
under his ministry, they themselves must bear all the blame. 
They have had life and death set before them. They have 
chosen death. 

5. No man's life will be a failure who does his own work. 
He may die without seeing the fruit of his work, as Peter did, 
yet his work shall abide and accomplish all that God designed 
it to accomplish in the advancement of his own purpose. When 
Peter came to the inverted cross he could see but little of the 
real results of all his labors. The seed that he had sown had 
borne but little fruit as yet. The great harvest was to linger 
long before it would be seen. Not until centuries had passed 
away would it be gathered in. But his life work was done. 
Like the Apostle Paul, he had finished his course, he had kept 
the faith. He had given to the great enterprise of saving souls, 
and elevating a lost race, his toils, and his influence ; and now 
he was giving it his dying testimony. The full result would 
not be seen till this enterprise was brought to its successful 
termination. Then, but not before, would his work appear ; 



John xxi. 23.] What is that to thee f 343 

and it would be seen that every deed was mighty in its place, 
and, like a good seed in good soil, under favoring conditions, 
was ripened into a glorious harvest. 

It is the same with all others who go forward in the spirit 
of obedience to God, and devote themselves to the work that 
He, by special call, or by his providence, has assigned them. 
They are, in this thing, " laborers together with God." The 
great end for which God permits them to labor with Him can 
no more fail of being reached than the Almighty can fail to 
bring about his own purposes. The way of obedience to God, 
in the doing of the work to which He calls men, is the way 
towards entire success, and a glorious triumph. 

Most of those who have been conspicuous as leaders in great 
and good works have died, as Peter died, while as yet their 
work was almost without a harvest, — saving a harvest of per- 
sonal obloquy and misrepresentation and persecution. Good 
causes come to maturity slowly in this world. Good influences 
have to struggle long and hard before they can prevail over 
those influences that oppose them, and secure for men the 
benign and elevating effects for which they are sent. Truth 
has to bear long and strive hard before it can gain the ear and 
the heart of those who cherish error. Everything good is of 
slow growth in a sinful world. They who toil for that which 
is good must, therefore, toil not only patiently, but in faith. 
They cannot walk by sight. One sows, and another reaps ; 
and between the sowing and the reaping the sower is often, 
generally, indeed, called away, so that he is not permitted to 
see it. Yet the harvest is sure ; and he shall rejoice in it. 
" His works do follow him " into the revelations and fruitions 
of the future world. 

If any despond because they cannot see their labors for good 
ripening into rich and abundant harvests under their own 
immediate inspection, let them remember that the perfecting 
of results is not their work. They may prepare the soil, they 
may sow the seed, they may watch and water it with faithful- 
ness, but the bringing forth of the germ, the developing of the 
stalk, the filling out and ripening of the grain, is not theirs. 
Paul may plant ; Apollos water ; but God giveth the increase. 
If they are sad that they cannot do these things too as well as 
the first, let them hear the Lord saying to them, " What is that 



344 What is that to thee f [Serm. xxxv. 

to thee ? " That is my business ; why do you meddle with it ? 
Be true to me in the doing of that which I have committed to 
you, and I will see to it that you fail not of your reward, and 
that your works fail not of grand and satisfying results. 

Let this test, " What is that to thee ? " be now applied to 
whatever asks our time and attention, and it will at once set 
many a perplexing question in a clear light before us. Let the 
inquiry be heard as from the Lord Himself, and let a conscien- 
tious answer be given to one's own heart, and there will remain 
but little darkness on most questions of duty. No man can do 
everything, and he is not required to try. Let the question, 
" What is that to thee ? " be put to one's self in the presence 
of the multitude of claims that clamor for satisfaction at his 
hands, and it will be like the magnet to the particles of iron 
amid surrounding dust. All that belongs to him will come 
forth and fasten itself on his conscience, and commend itself to 
his judgment, and that which does not belong to him will fall 
away from his thoughts and from his sphere of activity. 

Let this test be applied to most that you, my impenitent and 
unsaved hearer, are engaged with, and what would be the 
result ? You are in sin ; your soul is lost ; with a mind that 
will think, and a heart that will feel forever, either in heaven 
or in hell ; and with God's command and invitation to flee 
from the wrath to come and lay hold on eternal life, you are 
going on in steady disobedience to his command and disregard 
of his invitation, and making your way surely and rapidly to 
death. Does not the voice of divine love and compassion cry 
to you as you go from one thing to another, but still leave your 
eternal well-being uncared for ; does it not cry, " What is this 
to thee ? " while heaven is not secured, and your steps are 
leading down to death ? You are like one who is at ease, 
taking his recreations, seeking his amusements, on board a 
sinking ship, while the last chance for his escape is passing 
away from his reach. " What is that to thee ? " you would 
say to such an one ; what is that to thee, while your life is in 
peril, and your only hope of escape is neglected ? So our Lord 
is saying to you, as He looks upon your godless life, and be- 
holds you given wholly to the things of the present world. He 
cries to you, " Seek first the kingdom of God and his right- 
eousness. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul ? " 



John xxi. 22.] What is that to thee ? 345 

What is that to thee ? What is anything to thee, while 
God is crying to you, " Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die ? " 

Let this test be applied to much that Christians themselves 
are doing, and how great the change that it would work in 
their manner of life. The occupation of the slanderer, the 
tattler, the backbiter, the meddler, the busybody in other 
men's matters, would all be gone in a moment. What a holy 
calm, what a healthful peace would come over human society. 
" Where no wood is there the fire goeth out : so where there is 
no tale bearer the strife cease th." How too it would humble 
the worldly and self-seeking disciple, and infuse into his soul a 
higher spirituality and nobler consecration ! How many schemes 
of proud and vain ambition would it scatter as the wind drives 
away the chaff. What is that to thee ? heard as from the Lord, 
and answered as in the presence of the Lord, would soon fill 
many of our hearts with a peace they have not known for a 
long time. It would turn away our thoughts from many a 
vanity, from many a folly, from many a sin, and fix them on 
eternal realities, and fill them with heaven and God. It would 
dry up many a fountain of evil and injury to ourselves and 
others. It would sap the foundations of selfishness and apathy, 
and open the way speedily to such devotion to the will of the 
Lord, and the work of glorifying Him in the saving of souls, 
that there would be little room in our minds, and less disposi- 
tion, for the indulgence of trifling or meddlesomeness. " What 
is that to thee ? " Hear it from God, dear friends, and answer 
it in view of the judgment of the great day, respecting every 
object, and every engagement that claims your time or your 
attention. 



SERMON XXXVI. 

MANSIONS IN HEAVEN. 



John xiv. 2, 3. — In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would 
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place 
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye 
may be also. 

OUR Lord spake these words to reassure and comfort the 
minds of his disciples. He had just told them that He 
was about to leave them : " Little children, yet a little while I 
am with you. Ye shall seek me ; and, as I said unto the Jews, 
Whither I go, ye cannot come, so now I say to you." Besides 
this He had just announced the startling fact that one of their 
number was a traitor, and would deliver Him up to his 
enemies : " He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, 
Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray 
me." Added yet to this was the announcement that even 
Peter, who seemed foremost in his devotion, and bravest in his 
attachment to his master, would, that very night, thrice deny 
Him. 

All these, things were disheartening. They were a severe 
strain upon the courage and faith of the disciples. All their 
fondest hopes were sadly shaken, if not utterly cast down. 
They must have been greatly perplexed. Could it be that one 
of that trusted band was false-hearted, and ready to turn 
against their Master ? Could it be that the very leader of 
their number, the most forward and daring of them all, was so 
soon to deny all knowledge of his Master, and all association 
with Him ! They were not prepared for such announcements. 
If these things were true, what assurance had any of them that 
their own fidelity would not give way, and they themselves 
turn against both their Lord and his cause, for whom, and for 
which, they had supposed themselves ready to lay down their 
lives ? If what the\ had heard was true, and they were their 



John xiv. 2, 3.] Mansions in Heaven. 347 

Lord's words that they heard, how weak, how dependent, how 
insufficient of themselves, were they for the work, and the re- 
sponsibilities, and the realities, to which they had been called, 
and to which they had supposed themselves unsparingly de- 
voted ! 

All this weakness and unfaithfulness and unfitness was 
theirs while their Master was present with them ; and would 
be theirs even if he were to remain with them. But He was 
not to remain with them. The moment of their realization of 
their need of Him, and of their helplessness without Him, is the 
chosen moment to break the unwelcome news that He is soon 
to leave them, and go where they cannot accompany Him. 

If we bring the scene clearly before our minds, I think it 
will be evident that this must have been one of the darkest 
and most trying hours in the whole history of their disciple- 
ship. Everything seemed lost. They saw themselves home- 
less, friendless, deserted, and were perplexed and uncertain 
beyond measure regarding the past, and dispirited, and hope- 
less, and full of anxious forebodings regarding the future. 

It was to sustain them in this hour of depression, and comfort 
them in the sorrow that was beginning now to come upon them, 
and to prepare them to meet the stern and trying realities into 
which they were entering, that He addressed to them the 
words of our text, and those in immediate connection with it. 
He leads their minds up to sources of consolation and support 
which certainly will not fail them, however severe the trials 
through which they may have to pass. In other words He 
brings them to exercise that faith which He has implanted in 
them, by teaching them to look away from the things that are 
seen and temporal, to those that are unseen and eternal ; and 
to begin to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. " Let not 
your hearts be troubled. Ye believe in God. Believe also in 
me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it had not 
been so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for 
you ; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye 
may be also." 

1. The first sustaining and comforting thought which He 
impresses upon their minds is, that there is a home for them in 
heaven. 



348 Mansions in Heaven, [Serm. xxxvi. 

This is the exact thought and implication of the words, " In 
my Father's house are many mansions." It was true that they 
were to be left desolate in a world that had as sufficient portion 
for them, no permanent resting-place, no home, no friends. 
By the failure of their earthly hopes in the swamping of that 
cause for the sake of which they had abandoned all other 
causes, He gave them to understand that they saw only their 
real condition. He did not deny, He did not wish to, that the 
failure of his own cause, in the light in which they had been 
accustomed to view it, left them portionless wanderers, and 
outcasts among men. All this He would not conceal from 
them ; but, on the contrary, He would have them see and un- 
derstand it yet more clearly. He Himself sees it, and acknowl- 
edges it. He has seen it from the first, and He is therefore as 
calm, as undisturbed in spirit now as He had been at any 
previous moment of his history. He would have them so too. 
Hence He says to them, " Let not your heart be troubled. Still 
have faith in God. Still have faith in me. Your earthly 
hopes are gone, I know ; I have always known that they would 
fail ; they never will be realized. They have never, as a 
matter of fact, been justified. They never had any foundation 
in truth. But be not disturbed: there is something higher, 
more noble, more blessed to which you have been called, and 
which I have always had in view for you. God has not 
deceived you : I have not trifled with your feelings, nor abused 
your confidence. Trust us still ; and let your troubled hearts 
be at rest. Though you are homeless and portionless on earth, 
there is an inheritance for you in heaven. Though you are 
destined to bitter disappointment in your expectations of royal 
favors, and a dwelling-place in the earthly palace of an earthly 
Messiah, yet in my Father's house are many mansions, dwell- 
ing-places, homes. Of these you cannot fail. 

Our Lord's allusion here seems to be to what is said to have 
been the custom of Eastern monarchs of assigning to their 
courtiers habitations within their immense palaces. Here their 
friends and servants dwelt and were at home in the sunlight of 
the royal favor. So heaven, the dwelling-place of God, abounds 
with homes for his people. There are mansions in the heavenly 
palace, homes in the temple of the living God. 

It was to these our Saviour directed the desponding and 



John xiv. 2, 3.] Mansions in Heaven. 349 

troubled minds of his disciples. To these He would have 
them look. For these He would have them live. In these 
He would have them count themselves heirs to an inheritance 
in comparison with which all the riches of the world are trifles. 

2. All this they have and must receive on his simple word ; 
and this is the second sustaining thought that He impresses 
upon their minds. As in the past, so now they must count 
that word true, and rest in it as the word of one who was faith- 
ful. He could not deal falsely with them. He had not done 
so in the past. On the contrary, he had dealt in perfectly good 
faith with them. If all these glorious realities had not been in 
reserve for them He would have told them so at the first, and 
not drawn them into discipleship with Him, and into the 
abandonment of all their earthly hopes to espouse his cause, 
and link themselves irrevocably with his destiny. 

There are few things more comforting and sustaining to a 
believer than that to which the Saviour here brings the minds 
of his disciples, namely, his perfect candor and faithfulness. He 
deals with men fairly. He keeps back from them nothing 
which it is for their highest interest to know. He reveals 
the truth to them in no ambiguous terms. He shows them 
things as they are, and they may rest in them without fear 
of disappointment or deception. He does not speculate nor 
theorize, but reveals and declares. Believers must apprehend 
this as the distinctive feature in their Lord's dealing with them, 
or they will be often perplexed and disturbed. Their hearts 
will be troubled. This is true of them in all their relations to 
the present, and to the future. In hours of present darkness 
and desolation they must yet trust in his faithfulness not less 
than when their circumstances were, to their apprehension, 
more favorable. He foresaw these circumstances when He 
called them to faith in Him ; and these very circumstances are 
a part of the lot that He has chosen for them, in the midst of 
which He will be with them, and be all sufficient for them. If 
anything in all that they are called to endure or encounter 
could harm them while under his protection and guidance, He 
would have forewarned them of it that they might not repose 
any false trust in Him ; or He would have led them by another 
way that they might have escaped. These words, " If it were 
not so I would have told you," are intended to steady and 



350 Mansions in Heaven. [Serm. xxxvi 

strengthen the faith which He urges them still, in the most 
trying and depressing circumstances, to have in his faithful- 
ness. 

But they look forward, also, through all that can distress or 
dishearten, and demand a faith in unseen realities and glories, 
and a hoping for them, and a trusting in them, solely upon his 
authoritative declaration. There is a heaven, and there are 
homes for them in that heaven ; and this they must accept, 
both because if it were not so He would have told them, and 
also because, since it is so, He has told them. In other words, 
if the instinctive desires of their souls for a future state, and 
for a home in heaven and with God, were groundless and 
destined to disappointment, He would not have left them 
falsely to indulge these desires. His faithfulness to them and 
to truth would have undeceived them and saved them from the 
crushing disappointment that would otherwise have come upon 
them. 

On the other hand, his words of revelation appeal directly to 
their desires and hopes, and make known the realities of the 
future beyond this world in clear and unmistakable declara- 
tions. In these they must rest, or there will be nothing to 
allay the anxieties and doubts and fears of a troubled heart. 

And here we come to one of those subjects whose contem- 
plation will show us, more perhaps than any other, how utterly 
and entirely dependent we are upon the teachings of our Sav- 
iour for satisfying knowledge. He only has brought life and 
immortality to light ; and has done it only by the gospel. 
There are times in the history of us all, probabty, certainly of 
most of us, when our whole souls are' wrought up into intense 
thought, and almost an agony of desire to look bej 7 ond that 
deep, dark mystery that we call death, and know what is there. 
We stand by the form of some dear one who has just entered 
the dark mystery, and what thoughts come rushing into our 
minds ! Oh, speak to us from that side of the river which you 
have crossed, we cry ; speak but one word, at least one that we 
may know that that which was most precious to us, and which 
alone gave preciousness to this now cold, unmoving form, is not 
like it, cold, unmoving, and unconscious ! But the spirit that 
never before failed to respond to our call is silent. Does it 
still live ; or is it, like the body, dead ? If it live, oh where is 



John xiv. 2, 3.] Mansions in Hjaven. 351 

its abode ? What its employments ? What its nature and 
powers ? What its relations to God and to those who went 
before it, and to whom it had been bound in bonds of tenderest 
oneness and love ? But there is no response from the coffin, 
nor from the grave. Nor is there need that there should be. 
We have a surer word. To this we do well that we take heed. 
We have the word of Christ ; and to this we are shut up. 
To faith his word is all sufficient ; to unbelief no word could be 
satisfying. It would still doubt and fear, and be distressed. 
Stand by the lifeless form of one you love, of one in Christ, 
and let your soul be harrowed with questionings of what is be- 
yond ; be sure that nothing will bring calmness and assurance, 
until you listen believingly to the quiet but intensely positive 
words of Christ and his gospel : " In my father's house are 
many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you," is 
the assertion and implication of all you want to know. A 
mansion is a home for an intelligent, loving, pure-minded 
social being. It is a place of rest, of refreshment, of peaceful 
quiet, and of tender and loving converse with those whom we 
know, who are dear to us, and who are one with us in interest 
and in aims. Many mansions are many such homes for many 
such beings. Mansions in the house of God are homes in 
heaven, homes filled with the light of his favor, and free from 
all that can harm, or hinder those who dwell in them from the 
fullest enjoyment and the most unrestrained and satisfying 
use of all their powers and faculties. It is when we can rise 
up to the demand made upon us by our Saviour, and truly 
believe in God and in Him, that our hearts cease to be troubled 
upon the questions that have agitated and distressed us. 

There is a heaven and in it there are many mansions for 
Christ's people. This we know upon his own testimony. All 
his ministry for us, and all his dealings with us sustain the 
argument which He himself here urges in behalf of his faith- 
fulness, " If it were not so I would have told you." 

3. The third thought with which He met the troubled hearts 
of his disciples and comforted them, was that in leaving them 
He went away to make these mansions secure for them, " I go 
to prepare a place for you." 

Those heavenly mansions had all been forfeited. There was 
none of all the race of men that had any inheritance in them. 



352 Mansions in Heaven. [Serm. xxxvi. 

By their sin against God they had alienated their inheritance 
in them, and the way to heaven was barred forever against 
them if they were left to themselves. That barrier must be 
removed by the interposition of the only begotten Son of God, 
and the forfeited mansions must be recovered for them by his 
redemption, or there was no hope, no heaven, no home for 
them. 

This was the work for the accomplishment of which He left 
them. The sins by which they had forfeited their inheritance 
in heaven must be atoned for. The blood of the Son of God 
must become their propitiation. Hence it is written, that once 
in the end of the world He hath appeared to take away sin by 
the sacrifice of Himself, and his blood cleanseth from all sin. 
He died to make amends for his people's crimes, and thus to 
remove the barriers that shut heaven against them, and to 
bring the mansions of heaven once more within the possibility 
of possession by them. Hence again it is written, " Christ is 
not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are 
the figures of the true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear 
in the presence of God for us." " Now, once in the end of the 
world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of 
himself." 

Thus it was that He prepared a place in heaven for those 
who believe in Him. For this purpose He left his disciples, 
and went by a way that they could not go, i. e., by the satis- 
faction which He himself made to the divine law, unto the 
Father's presence. 

4. But He will come back to his disciples again and take 
them to Himself. This is the fourth and crowning thought 
with which He reassures and sustains them in their hour of trial 
and sorrow : " If I go away," or as surely as I go away, " I 
will come again and receive you unto myself ; that where I am 
there ye may be also." His interest in them will not cease 
nor flag. Though absent from them bodily, yet his heart is 
with them. His going away is purely for their sake. As a 
father goes before into a distant land and prepares a home that 
he may return and take his family to it, and that they may 
then abide with him, so did our Lord go away from his follow- 
ers only to prepare a place for them, and return and bring 
them to be with Him forever in his glory. 



John xiv. 2, 3.] Mansions in Heaven. 353 

But when and how does He come and receive his disciples 
unto Himself ? 

There is to be a second glorious coming of Christ to raise 
the bodies of his people from their resting-places in the earth, 
and transform them into the likeness of his glorious body, by 
the working of that mighty power whereby He is able even to 
subdue all things unto Himself. This will be a day of triumph 
for them, and a day of joyous reunion, not alone of soul and 
body, but of themselves with each other and with their Lord. It 
will be a day wherein his words of promise before us will have 
their perfect fulfillment. But his followers do not remain sep- 
arated from Him, nor are they till then deprived of communion 
with Him in his immediate and manifested presence. This is 
an official coming, if we may use the expression. It is his com- 
ing as the Judge of the world and the Head of the Church. It 
is his coming in final triumph, and for the final perfecting of 
his Church in the eyes of the intelligent universe. In this com- 
ing all believers are equally interested, and it concerns them 
all alike. It is not individual and special like that coming 
which is indicated by the text. It is not that coming to them 
by which He calls them each by name and leads them out. 

The teachings of the New Testament leave us in no doubt as 
to the time and manner of this coming. His own words to the 
thief on the cross, you know, were, " This day shalt thou be 
with me in Paradise." That was the day of his death. Our 
Lord had gone before him ; had shed the blood of atonement, 
had paid the ransom price for the heavenly inheritance, and 
had begun his all-prevailing intercessions at the throne of once 
offended but now satisfied justice ; this He had done before the 
penitent and believing suppliant had done with earthly life. 
The way was therefore open for his departing soul, and the 
blessed mansions were prepared for his occupancy. The day 
of his death was the day of the Lord's special coming to him 
and of his receiving him to Himself, that where He was there 
he might be also. 

Again the great Apostle writes to sustain the Corinthian 
Christians under their heavy trials and persecutions, and to 
cheer them to meet death calmly if it comes, " We are always 
confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we 
are absent from the Lord ; we are confident, I say, and willing 

23 



354 Mansions in Heaven. [Serm. xxxvi. 

rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the 
Lord." To be absent from the body was to be present with 
the Lord. At their death, therefore, their Lord returned and 
received them unto Himself that where He was they might be 
also. 

With this agrees also Paul's own intense desires as he speaks 
of them to the Philippians : "I am in a strait betwixt two, 
having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far bet- 
ter; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." 
For him to depart from the flesh was to be with Christ. But 
to depart from the flesh is to die. To die then is to come into 
that state which the Lord's words in our text promise to his 
disciples. In their death He comes and receives them unto 
Himself, that where He is there they may be also. 

This is the individual and special coming which He promises 
them. It is then He reveals Himself to his people as their 
present Lord and Redeemer, as He has never revealed Himself 
to them before. Then their faith in his spiritual presence gives 
place to positive knowledge and distinct conscious apprehension 
of his glorious bodily presence, and then they are received in 
the homes that his atonement and intercession have prepared 
for them, and they abide with Him thenceforth in unbroken 
and eternal communion. 

In this is the highest bliss of a disciple of Christ, "To be 
with Him." As his going away from the twelve was, and as 
his withdrawing the sense of his presence from all believers, is 
the most saddening of all things to them, that around which 
all their other causes of sorrow gathered as their centre and 
support, so his coming and receiving them to Himself to be 
with Him evermore, is the removal of all their sorrow and sad- 
ness and the perfection of all their joy. Thus the Psalmist 
sung, " In thy presence is fullness of joy ; at thy right hand 
there are pleasures for evermore." 

In the light of this passage of Scripture I remark, — 

1. It is right — nay, indeed, it is our duty — to draw com- 
fort and support during the cares and trials, and anxieties and 
depressing influences of the present life from anticipations of 
heaven. They who deny this right to the followers of Christ 
have not rightly apprehended his religion. This is a religion 
of service, it is true, but it is also a religion of anticipation, of 



John xiv. 2, 3.] Mansions in Heaven. 355 

hope, of joyful expectation. Often did our Saviour, and often 
did his Apostles, as did the holy men of old, strengthen and 
refresh their souls by this communion with heaven. u Our con- 
versation," says Paul, "is in heaven, whence also we look for 
the Lord Jesus Christ. Seek those things which are above 
where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." 

Present ills and sorrows, cares and toils, are to be counter- 
balanced by such communion of the soul with the unfading 
glories and eternal felicities of the home made sure for every 
friend of Christ in heaven. It is his privilege to sing con- 
tinually, — 

" When I can read my title clear 
To mansions in the skies, 
I'll bid farewell to every fear, 
And wipe my weeping eyes. 

" There shall I bathe my weary soul 
In seas of heavenly rest, 
And not a wave of trouble roll 
Across my peaceful breast." 

2. It is right and highly proper that we should think of our 
believing friends who have departed from us in death and speak 
of them and comfort ourselves with the assurance, that for 
them to be absent from the body is to be present with the 
Lord. They have departed to be with Christ, which is far bet- 
ter for them than to abide in the flesh. We may thus silence 
every cavilling thought as to their true condition ; we may an- 
ticipate the day of blessed reunion with them ; we may rise 
above that saddening, sickening sense of loss that comes over 
us in the first dread realization that death has finally done his 
work upon them, and when we see the grave close over their 
remains, and when we return to the desolated home that will 
know their presence no more. Oh, if we can then receive the 
Saviour's words and rest in them, that sense of loss will depart 
from us. True we shall miss them, and we shall mourn for 
them, but we shall not mourn as those who have no hope ; nor 
shall we miss them as forever lost to us. Our hearts will be 
cheered and soothed by the sweet influences of the truth re- 
specting their condition, and of the hope which is proffered us 
of one day joining them in their glorious mansions and in the 
house of their Father. 



356 Mansions in Heaven. [Serm. xxxvi. 

We shall cease, then, any longer to think of them as dead 
or as in the grave. Our Lord's words mil come to us with 
new meaning and power, " He that liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die." And we shall have a new understanding of 
the words of the beloved disciple, " I heard a voice from heaven 
saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the 
Lord, from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may 
rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." We 
shall respond cheerfully to the Apostle's words respecting him- 
self, and true of every believer : " To me to live is Christ, and 
to die is gain." 

To you, then, who mourn the death of your believing friends, 
let me use the Saviour's language, as I too have heard it by 
the coffin and the grave : Let not your hearts be troubled. Be- 
lieve in God. Believe also in his Son. In his Father's house 
are many mansions. If it were not so He would have told you ; 
and in coming to your friends in death He has come to receive 
them unto Himself, as the bridegroom receives his bride, that 
they may be with Him henceforth forever. 



SERMON XXXVII. 

THE PERPETUITY OF THE SABBATH. 



Mark it. 27, 28. — And He said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not 
man for the Sabbath ; therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath. 

OUR Lord here sets forth the doctrine of the Sabbath. His 
words distinctly assert three things regarding it, and as 
distinctly imply three more. 

Before we proceed to notice these assertions and implica- 
tions, it may be well for us to call to mind the fact that the 
word Sabbath means simply rest ; and that the Sabbath day is 
simply the rest day. In the passage before us, as in every other 
that contains the word Sabbath, we should only be giving En- 
glish for Hebrew if we should read rest day instead of Sab- 
bath. " The rest day was made for man." 

1. The first assertion of the text is, that the Sabbath was 
made. The implication is, that it was made by God. It is an 
institution of God, and not an invention of man. 

The question arises, when was the Sabbath instituted ? The 
fact that it was instituted is denied by none who do not reject 
the truthfulness of the Bible. But there is a strange misap- 
prehension in the public mind as to the time of its institution ; 
and out of this misapprehension have come equally strange 
reasonings regarding the character and authority of the Sab- 
bath itself. Almost all the objections which are urged against 
the authority of the Sabbath, and nearly all the reasons given 
for the non-observance or perversion of it, rest on the assump- 
tion that the Sabbath was instituted at the same time with the 
institution of the ceremonial and ritual service of the Jews on 
Mount Sinai. The argument drawn from this assumption is 
that the Sabbath was simply a part of the Jewish Ceremonial 
Law, and, as such, passed away when that Law was fulfilled 



358 The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. [Serm. xxxvil 

in the coming and work of the Messiah. But nothing could be 
farther from the truth than this assumption is ; and nothing 
could be more erroneous than this reasoning. It is no nearer 
the truth to say that the worship of the one only living and 
true God was instituted at the giving of the Law on Sinai, or 
that the Moral Law was then instituted, than to say that the 
Sabbath was then instituted. Both the moral law and the 
Sabbath had existed from the beginning of human history. 
They were reiterated on Sinai, and enforced with special sanc- 
tions. The Sabbath, like some, if not all, the other precepts 
of the Decalogue, was then invested with certain special and 
peculiarly Jewish forms of observance. Like every other pre- 
cept of the Decalogue, the Sabbath was to be observed by the 
Jews in a certain prescribed form. This form of observance 
was instituted on Sinai, — but not the Sabbath itself. These 
forms, both those pertaining to the observance of the moral 
precepts, and of the Sabbath, came to an end when the object 
of their institution had been accomplished in the development 
of Jewish history, but the authority of moral principles did 
not then come to an end, nor did the institution of the Sabbath 
then come to an end. Both remained as they were before. All 
that was ceremonial and Jewish passed away ; all that was 
original and fundamental continued. 

All arguments, therefore, that assume that the Sabbath was 
a Jewish institution, having its origin with other peculiarly 
Jewish enactments, and passing away when they passed away, 
are false ; and all inferences drawn from them are false. 

It requires but a moment's attention to the sacred narrative 
of the creation, and of the history of the world from that time 
onward, to the nationalizing of Israel at the foot of Sinai, to 
correct this false assumption. This narrative brings the insti- 
tution of the Sabbath before us as the first of all divine ap- 
pointments for man, as distinguished from the brute creation, 
and marks the fact of its observance through the intervening 
centuries with sufficient clearness to be easily traced, although, 
as was necessary in so condensed a narrative, and as is the case 
with all other general topics, its mention was rather incidental 
than direct. 

The act of institution itself is, however, stated with explicit - 
ness. It took place at the beginning of man's existence. " Thus 



Mark ii. 27, 28.] The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. 359 

the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of 
them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which He 
had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all his work 
which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and 
sanctified it : because that in it He had rested from all his work 
which He had created and made." This was the institution of 
the Sabbath. It had its beginning with the beginning of the 
human race. 

When the Jewish Law was proclaimed from Sinai, the fact 
of this original institution of the Sabbath was distinctly 
brought forward by Jehovah, and given as the reason why the 
Sabbatic precept was put with the other precepts of the Dec- 
alogue. The command is, " Remember" — call to mind and 
hold in the memory — " the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 
Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work : but the sev- 
enth day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt 
not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man- 
servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger 
that is within thy gates." This is the command, and a part of 
its special prescriptive environment. Then follows this declara- 
tion as a reason for it all : " For in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the 
seventh day : wherefore God blessed the Sabbath day and hal- 
lowed it." As each of the other precepts was given because 
the principle which it involved was established in the creation 
of moral agents, and must ever run parallel with their exist- 
ence ; so this precept, which sets forth the observance of the 
Sabbath as a duty, was given at the creation of man, and its 
obligation runs parallel with his existence on the earth. The 
" for " in the reason that follows the giving of the fourth com- 
mandment, has this force : " Remember the Sabbath day, to 
keep it holy," — " for its institution runs back to the begin- 
ning of human history, and is not only fundamental to the 
well-being of men, but an expression of the will of their Cre- 
ator regarding them in all their earthly life." 

I have said that the narrative of human history from the 
creation of man to the nationalizing of Israel before Sinai, 
showed distinct marks of the observance of the Sabbath during 
that time. These marks, I repeat, are rather incidental and 
allusive than direct and primary. Nevertheless, they are suffi- 



360 The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. [Serm. xxxvii. 

cient to show that what God instituted at the creation He did 
not permit to come to naught, nor be forgotten. 

These marks are found in the evident fact that the patri- 
archs, both before and after the Deluge, were accustomed to a 
seven days' division of time, and that God regarded it in his 
dealings with them. Thus we find that seven days was the 
time that God gave Noah from the going forth of his final com- 
mand to him to enter the ark, until He brought the waters 
upon the earth. Seven days was the time that Noah delayed 
between the first and second sending out of the dove from the 
ark ; and seven days was the time between her return with the 
olive leaf and her final sending forth. It was " a week " that 
Jacob was compelled to wait for Rachel after the cruel decep- 
tion that had been practiced upon him by his father-in-law. 

That these seventh day divisions, and the observance of 
weeks, was in view of the Sabbath, becomes almost if not 
quite certain, when we find the same division prevailing among 
the Israelites immediately after their departure from Egypt, 
and before they came to Sinai. It was before the giving of the 
Law on that Mount that the manna was furnished for their 
food. In promising it, and in giving directions concerning it, 
the Lord addressed them as though they already understood 
and observed the Sabbath : " Then said the Lord unto Moses, 
Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you ; and the people 
shall go out and gather a certain rate every day ; and it shall 
come to pass that on the sixth day they shall prepare that 
which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they 
gather daily. And it came to pass that on the sixth day they 
gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man. And 
all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And 
he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, To- 
morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord : bake 
that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe, 
and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until 
the morning." And when the people found that the quantity 
which was kept over now did not spoil and become corrupt, as 
it did when they attempted to keep it over on other days, 
Moses said to them, " Eat that to-day ; for to-day is a Sabbath 
unto the Lord ; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six 
days shall ye gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the 
Sabbath, in it there shall be none." 



Mark ii. 27, 28.] The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. S61 

You perceive then that this whole narrative of the giving of 
the manna in the wilderness assumes that the children of Israel 
knew of the Sabbath, and that their division of time into weeks 
was made by the observance of it. It is seen also by this nar- 
rative that God emphasized his claim to this day in his dealings 
with them before He gave them the Law from the Mount. It 
is plain, therefore, that the Sabbath existed as an ordinance of 
God before the giving of the Law, and that the people under- 
stood it, and that when they were commanded, soon after, to 
" Remember it," they were commanded to keep in memory a 
thing of which they already had knowledge, and not to give 
heed to a thing then for the first time made known to them. 
They, as did their fathers, knew of the Sabbath that was in- 
stituted at the creation, and by it were accustomed to mark 
their most common division of time. 

These facts establish the truth, then, of what we have said, 
that the Sabbath was not instituted on Mount Sinai at the 
giving of the Law. It was there recognized, as the moral prin- 
ciples of the Law were, as already existing ; and, as they were, 
was invested prescriptively with some things peculiarly Jewish. 
It was, in itself, in all its essential features, instituted at the 
close of the work of creation, and was never permitted to fall 
utterly away from the memory of the men to whom God made 
Himself known by supernatural revelations. 

2. This brings us to the second assertion of our text and its 
second implication: " The Sabbath was made for man." This 
is the assertion. The implication is that no man, nor any set 
of men, can rightfully or lawfully deprive any man of the en- 
joyment of the Sabbath. 

The fact that God instituted the Sabbath, and made its 
observance begin with the beginning of human history, would 
seem to be enough to establish the fact asserted by our Saviour, 
even if He had not asserted it. As we have seen, in consider- 
ing the time of its institution, everything connected with its 
beginning and history shows that it was made for man, — that 
is, for mankind. Its institution was for man's sake ; and re- 
garded him, not as connected with any age, or any nationality, 
but as belonging to time, and as a member of the human race. 
It was not made for the Jews, nor is it in any sense a Jewish 
institution, any more than the worship and service of God is 



362 The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. [Sekm. xxxvii. 

a Jewish institution. Because, e. g., men, as men, have been 
endowed with faculties by which they may know God and 
honor Him, therefore it is their duty and privilege as men to 
worship and serve Him. Because they have as men been in- 
vested by their Creator with the rights and privileges of his 
Sabbath, therefore it belongs to them as men to observe and 
enjoy it. There is no more Judaism in the one than in the 
other. There is no more of the ceremonial and ritual in the 
one than in the other. The one can no more pass away and 
become obsolete than the other. The worship and service of 
God are permitted to man, as man, as his inalienable privilege. 
The rest of one day in seven, for special devotion to this wor- 
ship and service, is permitted to man, as man, as his inalien- 
able privilege. 

All this is asserted by these words of our Saviour, " The 
Sabbath was made for man," and he who claims that the Sab- 
bath was made only for the Jews contradicts the words of our 
Saviour. If the Sabbath was a Jewish institution, having its 
origin with the ceremonial law that was to be fulfilled and 
come to an end in Christ ; and was, as some claim, abrogated 
by the coming of Christ, then there is no sense in which our 
Saviour's words can be maintained. If the Sabbath was made 
for Jews only, it was not made for man ; but it was made for 
only a small class of men, and for them for only a portion of 
the time which man has existed and is to exist on the earth. 
On the contrary, our Lord's word for man is the most general 
that can be used [Sia rbv avOpoiirov] and its range of application 
covers all classes of men, and all time. 

The implication, then, is too plain to be denied, that when 
our Lord says " the Sabbath was made for man," He claims 
for man as man a privilege and right in the Sabbath of which 
no man, nor any set of men, may lawfully or rightfully deprive 
him. It belongs to him because he is a man. God has given 
it to him. He who deprives him of it sets himself against God, 
and robs him of that which God has bestowed upon him as his 
inalienable right and blessing. No one can rightfully take it 
from him ; nor can he rightfully take it from himself. It be- 
longs to him by God's ordination, as his own person and life 
and as air and food and water belong to him. If ho robs him- 
self of his Sabbath he thwarts the ordination of God, throwing 



Mark ii. 27, 28.] The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. 363 

away that with which God has invested hini and which is, by 
the ordering of God, inalienable. He, therefore, who refuses 
to take and enjoy the Sabbath that God has made for him, not 
only insults God, but he becomes a moral suicide, as clearly and 
as guiltily as he would become a physical suicide who should 
refuse to breathe the air that God made for him to breathe, or 
take the food that he gave Him to eat, or the water He gave 
him to drink. God made the Sabbath for him as much as He 
made air, food, and drink for him. It is not only his privilege 
but his duty to use it, and be blessed by it, as much as it is to 
use them and live by them so long as God permits him to stay 
upon the earth. 

And the history of the Sabbath shows that God has guarded 
the Sabbath by constitutional and natural sanctions, just as He 
has every other ordination which He has made for the good of 
men as men. They cannot habitually neglect the Sabbath and 
treat themselves on it as they treat themselves on the other 
days of the week, and not suffer injury and loss. A man may, 
e. <?., if he chooses, deny himself the food that God has created 
for him ; but if he does, he will become a self-murderer. He 
may refuse to enjoy the sleep that God has ordained for him ; 
but if he does his constitution will become shattered, and he 
will perish with the guilt of a suicide on his soul. He may, if 
he will, violate every moral principle by which God has or- 
dained that a moral agent shall be governed ; but if he does he 
will bring upon himself, not simply the disfavor of God, but 
the inevitable fruits of vice and immorality. He may thus, if 
he will disregard God's gift and ordinance of the Sabbath ; but 
if he does, all history shows that he will reap the fruit of self- 
abuse, and of sinning against the mercy of God. 

The Sabbath was made for man. He needs it, and must 
have it or suffer for want of it. 

3. I come now to the third assertion, and the third implica- 
tion of our text. " The Son of man is Lord also of the Sab- 
bath." This is the assertion. The implication is that any 
change in the day itself, or in the manner of keeping it which 
He may sanction, is authorized, and men ought everywhere to 
conform to it. 

The Pharisees complained to Him that his disciples, in fol- 
lowing Him through the. field of grain, and satisfying their 



364 The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. [Seem, xxxvii. 

hunger by plucking and eating of it, were breaking the Sab- 
bath. He admitted that their complaint was well grounded so 
far as the literal application of the merely Jewish precepts re- 
garding the manner of observing the Sabbath was concerned. 
But he throws Himself back of these precepts upon the great 
primary and unchanging purpose of the Sabbath itself, irrespec- 
tive of any prescriptive rules ; and asserting the universality of 
the Sabbath as made for man, and not for the Jews alone, 
He draws the inference which is contained in this assertion : 
" Therefore because the Sabbath is of this character, the Son 
of man is Lord of it." He is man's sovereign and it belongs to 
Him to rule in all that pertains to man's well-being. Nothing 
that concerns this is excepted from his Lordship. It is his pre- 
rogative to legislate as He will regarding it. No man may call 
Him to account for what He may enjoin or authorize ; and no 
man may set aside or disallow what He ordains. The Sabbath 
itself He will not annul, for it was made for man. But the 
manner in which the Sabbath shall be observed and enjoyed 
He will Himself prescribe. The Sabbath itself, with all its. 
primary and fundamental purposes, shall go into and become a 
part of the privileges and blessing of his kingdom ; but the 
manner in which it shall be observed and enjoyed shall be 
Christian and not Jewish. 

All this is clearly contained in the declaration, " The Son of 
man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Accordingly we find that 
his disciples immediately after his crucifixion began to act on 
the principle that He had announced. Their rest and worship 
day began to be one chosen out of respect to their Lord's resur- 
rection. The manner of observing and enjoying this day was 
in harmony with Christian rather than Jewish institutions. 
They denied the authority of all that was Jewish in the Sab- 
bath ; and repudiated it as a burden to which a Christian 
ought not to submit. It had had its day, and, like all the rest 
that was merely ceremonial in the Mosaic Law, was fulfilled 
and done away by Christ. 

The Apostles, therefore, went boldly forward and took the 
first day of the week for their Sabbath, and filled this day with 
services peculiarly Christian in their character. Their rest day 
became one for the joyous assembling together of those who 
had hope through the resurrection of Christ, for the preaching 



Mark ii. 27, 28.] The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. 365 

and hearing of the word of Christ, and for the breaking of 
bread in commemoration of the death of Christ. 

Here is our authority for the observance of the first day of the 
week instead of the seventh of the week, and of our giving the 
day to Christian services. The Lord's Apostles who were com- 
missioned to lay the foundations of the Christian institutions, 
and who were guided by the unerring Spirit and sustained, for a 
time, by the weekly visits of their risen Lord, made the first day 
of the week their special rest and worship day, and invested it 
with all the characteristics that render it a Christian Sabbath. 
They acted in Christ's name, and by his authority. Their acts 
were his, therefore, and his Lordship justified them in doing as 
they did, and binds us and all men to follow in their footsteps. 
You must admit this conclusion, or you must deny the author- 
ity of Apostolic example in the establishment and observance 
of Christian institutions. But you do not deny this. You rest 
upon it as upon the truth itself. You must, therefore, hold to 
the Christian Sabbath and feel your obligation to remember it 
and keep it holy as an ordinance of your Lord which no man 
has the right to annul or neglect. 

Remarks. 1. The Sabbath is to the Christian rather a privi- 
lege than a law. To observe it is rather freedom than restraint. 
It is the privilege of resting from toil ; the freedom to worship 
and serve God unmolested by secular cares and occupations. 
To observe it, in the way that comports with the spirit and 
teachings of the gospel, is to enjoy the privilege of a nearer and 
more intimate communion with God and eternal things, and to 
live, by foretaste, in the glorious freedom of a perfect and sin- 
less service of God in heaven. To the saint it is this. To the 
sinner it is to embrace and improve God's chosen time for the 
seeking of salvation, and laying hold of eternal life. 

2. They who encourage men to disregard the Sabbath, and 
give their influence against its divine authority and perpetual 
obligation, set themselves in opposition to Christ and his teach- 
ings, and become the enemies and ill advisers of their fellow- 
men. Christ declares that the Sabbath was made for man. 
They deny this, and assert that it was made only for the Jews. 
His words imply that it was made for the good of man, and 
that men will be benefited by observing it. They declare that 
it is not good for men, and that its observance will bring them 
harm. 



366 The Perpetuity of the Sabbath. [Seem, xxxvil. 

With whom will you go, my hearers ? "Will you take sides 
with Christ and uphold the institution which He has indorsed, 
and of which He is sovereign Lord ? Or, will you go with 
those who contradict his words and trample on his authority ? 
Your treatment of the Christian Sabbath will be the answer 
which you will give to these questions. Go against Christ and 
you go for the degradation and barbarizing of our land. Go 
with Christ and you go for the best interests of men in this 
world and the world to come ; for the best interest of your own 
soul now and hereafter, and, above all, for the honor and au- 
thority of the Lord Jesus Christ. 



ESSAYS 



THE PENALTY OF SIN. 



WE propose to consider the question : " What is the pen- 
alty of sin for man in the government of God ? " 

Penalty has been denned to be" the suffering in person or 
property, which is annexed by law or judicial decision to the 
commission of a crime, offense, or trespass, as a punishment." 
The limitation, " by law or judicial decision," is essential to 
the correctness of the definition. Sufferings which are not in- 
flicted by law, or judicial decision, are not penalty. It would, 
perhaps, express more accurately the relation of penalty to law 
to say, that it is the suffering which is threatened by the law 
itself, in its penal clause, as the punishment of him who trans- 
gresses it. When penalty is inflicted upon the transgressor of 
any law, it is just that which is thus threatened, and nothing 
else, judicially visited upon him. 

Nothing can be properly named penalty which is not con- 
tained in this penal clause of the law, prescribing what shall 
be the punishment for its transgression. Other evils may be 
suffered by the transgressor as consequences of his transgres- 
sion. Inflicted penalty may, also, involve him who suffers it, 
in a long train of evil consequences from which he can by no 
means escape. But unless these consequences, whether of 
transgression or of inflicted penalty, enter into the publication 
of the law as its penal sanction, and are inflicted by judicial 
decree, they cannot, in any proper sense of the term, be called 
penalty. They are only consequences. For example : if a 
man commits murder in this Commonwealth, the only thing 
which the law that forbids murder carries with it in its publica- 
tion, as a penal threatening, is death, — " that intrusive remi- 
niscence of more barbarous times," according to the quiet and 
very positive assumption of our progressive chief magistrate. 
Whatever else the murderer may suffer as the consequence of 
his crime, if he does not suffer death by a judicial sentence, 

24 



370 The Penalty of Sin. 

the penalty of his crime is not inflicted upon him. Pangs of 
conscience, days of anxiety and nights of terror, disgrace to 
himself and his family, imprisonment and impoverishment, — 
none of these enter into his penalty, though they are conse- 
quences, some of them of his crime, others of his being accused 
of crime. Again : one who commits forgery may suffer dis- 
grace, may see his family ruined, his prospects in business 
hopelessly blighted, his property wasted ; not as the imme- 
diate consequences of his crime, but of the penalty which the 
law threatens as the punishment of the forger, and which is 
inflicted upon him by judicial authority. His confinement to 
hard labor in the state prison, this, and nothing else, is the 
penalty of his crime. 

Such is penalty, regarded in its relation to law. It is found 
to be the same when we look at it in its relation to pardon. 
Pardon, in any given instance, is an exact and full measure of 
all the decreed penalty that has not been executed upon the 
transgressor at the time when his pardon takes effect. In the 
case of the condemned murderer, if executive clemency reaches 
him in the form of pardon, it simply removes from him the 
sentence of death. It does nothing more. It removes not one 
other consequence of his crime. And so, if pardon is extended 
to the forger, who has been convicted and sentenced for his 
crime, and is already suffering his punishment, it simply opens 
his prison door, and bids him go free, without suffering the 
remainder of his sentence. Not one of the many evils that his 
penalty has dragged in its train of consequences is removed by 
his pardon. It does not restore to him, nor to his family, the 
honor and respect which a convict's doom wrenched from 
them; it does not bring back his ruined business nor his 
wasted property. If he ever regains these he regains them 
through some other instrumentality than that of pardon. This 
has taken off from him that, and only that, which was made 
his punishment by the penal clause of the law which he trans- 
gressed. 

Penalty is thus limited, whatever be the law for whose vio- 
lation it is the punishment. All law, to be law, must be sus- 
tained by penal sanctions ; and these, to be of effect, must be 
announced with the law itself in its publication. They are 
penalty only as they are sanctions, and they are sanctions only 



The Penalty of Sin. 371 

as they go forth in the publication of the law to deter those 
who are subject to it from transgression. We are brought, 
then, to this conclusion regarding the penalty of sin for man in 
the government of God ; that it is just what the law of God, 
by its penal clause, announced to man as his punishment if he 
should transgress. The penal clause in the law of God, like 
the penal clause in any other law, is properly a judicial threat- 
ening of punishment to deter those to whom it is given from 
transgression, and to uphold its authority. To decide what the 
penalty of sin is, we have, therefore, only to look at the penal 
clause of the law of God in the only announcement of it which 
was ever made to men who had not already sinned. To these 
only could the penal clause be intended as a deterring threat. 
To such as have sinned it is the measure of the punishment to 
which they are already doomed. 

We must go back, then, to God's dealings with sinless man, 
to find by what legal threatening He enforced upon him the 
authority of his law to deter him from transgressing it. The 
only instance on record of such dealing is that wherein God 
forbade the first, the only sinless man, to eat of " the fruit of 
the tree of knowledge of good and evil." This was an an- 
nouncement of divine law. The history of the transaction, and 
other portions of the Scriptures, make it out clearly to have 
been the formal publishing of the law of God to man. We 
know not how fully the Lawgiver, in his dealings with Adam, 
explained the law in its bearings upon moral beings, and upon 
their relations to each other, and to Himself. But this much 
is clear, that God invested this single prohibition with all his 
authority. The whole of the divine law, so far as the authority 
of God was concerned, was summed up in these simple words : 
" Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of 
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat 
of it." This brought the whole of God's authority upon man, 
and reduced all questions touching the relation which he was 
to sustain to his Creator to this : whether or not he would be 
governed by his authority. The prohibition which narrowed 
the case down to this point, and was thus invested with all the 
authority of God, was itself the law of God. 

Now, what was threatened as the punishment for transgress- 
ing this law ? For if we examine the prohibition we see that 



372 The Penalty of Sin. 

it has its penal clause, a threatening of punishment to deter 
from transgression. The thing threatened was simply and 
only death. The only penal clause that went with the law, 
when it was given, and none was ever added afterward, to 
deter sinless men from sinning, was this : " for in the day that 
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Nothing else was 
named as a consequence or a punishment. This one clause 
contained all the penal sanction by which the authority of the 
law of God was sustained. Nothing else but death was threat- 
ened as the punishment for sin. Nothing else, therefore, but 
death enters into its penalty. Sin may have, and does have, 
many other consequences besides death following it ; and 
death, the penalty, may, and does, draw after itself many 
evils which fall upon the sinner ; but these do not enter into 
nor form any part of the penalty. They are not the punish- 
ment that the law threatened in its penal clause, nor are they 
removed, so that they are not still suffered by the penitent 
sinner, when pardon is vouchsafed to him through the atone- 
ment of Christ. 

If we abide by these simple principles we shall escape the 
confusion which is often introduced at this point into the treat- 
ment of our subject. It is no uncommon thing to see writers 
and preachers go directly from the threatening contained in 
the penal clause of the divine law, to the divine recognition of 
other consequences of sin and of penalty, and incorporating 
these into their ideas and definitions of penalty, load it with 
much that was not threatened, and which pardon never re- 
moves. In this way many are brought to treat as penalty 
all those evils which the Lord named over to our first parents 
after they had sinned, and already come under the curse of 
transgression. These evils were dragged in the train of pen- 
alty, and had now become the fixed inheritance of man, while 
he should remain upon the earth ; but, we repeat, they cannot 
"be counted the penalty of his sin, because they were not con- 
tained in the penal clause of the law to deter from sin, nor are 
they removed from the lot of men when they are pardoned. 

The evils to which we allude are those that are set forth in 
the third chapter of Genesis : " Unto the woman He said, I 
will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception ; in sorrow 
shalt thou bring forth children ; and thy desire shall be to thy 



The Penalty of Sin. 373 

husband, and he shall rule over thee." And unto Adam He 
said, " Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, 
and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, 
Thou shalt not eat of it ; cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in 
sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life ; and thou 
shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it 
wast thou taken : for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou 
return." 

This passage is often treated, we say, as though it were the 
penal clause of the divine law- But there is not one word of 
threatening in it to deter from sin. It holds out no hope of 
escape from the woes foretold. It was not uttered until after 
the fatal transgression had been committed, and the divine 
threatening that contained the penalty had already taken effect 
upon the guilty pair. The passage was simply the foretelling 
of those woes which were now unavoidable, whether those to 
whom it was addressed ever sinned again or not. And, we 
repeat it, not one of the evils of which the Lord here speaks is 
ever removed by the pardon which He grants to penitent sin- 
ners. They cannot, therefore, be included in the penalty of 
sin. They do not belong to it, nor form any part of it. If 
they did, then every pardoned sinner would cease to suffer 
them the moment he was pardoned, for pardon removes all of 
penalty. If any of the penalty of sin remains upon a sinner 
to be suffered by him, he is not pardoned, but is under con- 
demnation still. If, therefore, any one of the evils named in 
this passage enters into the penalty of sin, there is not a par- 
doned sinner in the world, and never has been. For it is a 
contradiction, in terms to speak of one's being pardoned, and 
at the same time suffering penalty. But we see pardoned 
women, like all others, having their " conception multiplied ; 
in sorrow they bring forth children," just as other women do. 
Pardoned men, like all others, find the ground cursed for them ; 
like others, " they eat of it in sorrow all the days of their life." 
The earth, therefore, brings forth thorns and thistles for par- 
doned farmers, just as it does for those who are unpardoned. 
Moreover, they have to eat their bread in the. sweat of their 
face, just as they did before they were pardoned. Then, at 
last, both the pardoned and the unpardoned return alike to the 



374 The Penalty of Sin. 

dust whence they were taken. In all these respects, " one 
event happeneth to them all." 

It is a curious circumstance that with this last fact standing 
out so distinctly in all the history of the world, it should have 
passed into a theological axiom, that " the penalty of sin is 
death, natural, spiritual, and eternal." But upon what princi- 
ple can natural death — the separation of the soul from the 
body — be accounted any part of the penalty of sin ? Pardon 
is the exact measure of penalty, and its mission is to save the 
guilty, to whom it is granted, from suffering it. But pardon 
does not save sinners from suffering natural death. 

It has been said, indeed, that pardon does not take effect on 
this part of the penalty of sin until the body is raised from the 
grave, and that the resurrection is a part of the pardon of sin, 
as dissolution is a part of its penalty. But this does not relieve 
us of the difficulty ; for, in the first place, the bodies of the 
unjust are to be raised from the graves as well as those of the 
just. " There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the 
just and unjust." If, therefore, the resurrection of the body is 
a part of pardon, or its effect, then the unjust are pardoned 
not less than the just, and the consequence is that some par- 
doned sinners are raised to u the resurrection of damnation." 
Then, secondly, it leaves the pardoned under condemnation 
until the resurrection, contrary to the express declaration of 
the Scriptures, that " there is now no condemnation to them 
that are in Christ Jesus." A partial pardon, the removing of 
a part of the penalty from a believing penitent, and the leaving 
of the remainder of it upon him to be suffered, is, happily, an 
idea foreign to the gospel. In both its letter and its spirit, it 
repudiates the thought. Nothing could be farther from its 
teachings than that a child of God is, at the same time, a child 
of wrath, pardoned, and yet under condemnation ; saved and 
yet punished. God chastens his children ; but He does not 
punish them, visiting upon them the penalty of their sins. 
From this He wholly saves them by pardon. Otherwise the 
very naming of pardon would be a mockery. 

A fair sample of all the arguments that we have met with 
for the support of this theological axiom (most writers accept- 
ing it as an axiom, and therefore needing no proof), is that 
very dogmatic one of Turretin (Ques. xii. 5) : " Scriptura lo- 



The Penalty of Sin. 375 

quitur in genere de morte, Ergo sub ea coroplectitur quicquid 
nomine mortis venit in Scriptura ; atque ita non minus mors 
corporalis, quam eterna intelligenda est." This, though a very 
poor argument, is, nevertheless, a very good explanation, we 
apprehend, of the way in which the subject has become so con- 
fused in the popular mind. " Scriptura loquitur in genere de 
morte : " Ergo — without thought or discrimination, and with- 
out considering the consequences involved in such an assumption. 
Death, in every sense in which the Scriptures use the word, is 
the penalty threatened to Adam in the garden. But if because 
" Scriptura loquitur in genere de morte, Ergo sub ea complec- 
titur, quicquid nomine mortis venit in Scriptura," then, when 
our Saviour says, " whosoever liveth and believe th in me shall 
never die," He means that the believer shall never suffer bodily 
death ; because, " non minus mors corporalis quam seterna in- 
telligenda est." But the believer does suffer bodily death, just 
as the unbelievers do. Our Lord had no reference, therefore, 
to bodily death, when He uttered these cheering words ; and 
we must not -include in the term "death," "quicquid nomine 
mortis venit in Scriptura ; " nor must we, if we accept our Sav- 
iour's declaration as truth, include bodily death in penalty. 
The death from which He saves the believer is not the death 
of the body, but it is the death which is the penalty of sin. 

We return then to our question : What is the penalty of 
sin ? We have seen that it is simply and only death ; but 
that it is not bodily death : that this does not enter into pen- 
alty, as one, the least, of its elements. We are led thus to 
inquire : What is that death which is the penalty of sin ? 

The Scriptures alone can guide us in our inquiry. These 
teach us, in the first place, that death, the penalty of sin, is 
something that came upon Adam as soon as he sinned. " In 
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," fixes 
the time of the execution of the penalty, as clearly as it does 
the name of the penalty itself. Words could not be combined 
so as to state with more positiveness, that death should follow 
at once upon transgression, and at once become the portion of 
the transgressor. This is so manifest, that men have been com- 
pelled, whatever views they have entertained regarding the 
nature of the death that was threatened, either to admit that 
it was, in some sense, inflicted immediately upon our first par- 



376 The Penalty of Sin. 

ents when they sinned, or to deny that it was ever inflicted 
on them. " Adam then became mortal," say some. Others, 
" he then came under sentence of, and became subject to 
death." Others have it that Adam then began to die, as we 
are sometimes told all men do, " as soon as they be born," and 
that he kept on dying for nine hundred and thirty years, at 
the end of which he really died — or, more properly, he stopped 
dying, having been all this time coming to that which Jehovah 
had solemnly said, in the penal threatening of his law, he 
should come to the day he sinned. But all these schemes of 
postponement are very unsatisfactory, as interpretations of the 
Word of God. They are flatly opposed to the spirit of direct- 
ness and positiveness which pervades the divine threatening ; 
and, what is worse, if possible, they all leave pardoned sinners 
to suffer the penalty of their sins during their whole life upon 
the earth. To be dying for years the death that was threat- 
ened as penalty, is to be suffering that penalty for years ; 
and to be subject to that death, and to be awaiting it to the 
end of earthly life as an inevitable doom, is to be subject to 
penalty, and awaiting its certain and inexorable infliction. 
Pardon is thus a nullity. But God does not thus trifle with 
men. The pardon which He promises to the penitent cannot 
but be real ; and if real, it removes penalty from his lot, and 
removing this, it removes that which was called death by the 
penal clause of the law, and which came upon Adam the day 
he sinned. 

We are unable to see why this argument is not a most ef- 
fectual " short method " with all classes of " Annihilationists," 
who profess subjection to the authority of the Scriptures. If 
Adam died the day he sinned, and yet existed as a conscious 
and accountable being for nine hundred and thirty years there- 
after, it is difficult to see that death, the penalty of sin, has 
anything whatever to do with the mere fact of conscious and ac- 
countable existence. It is true that men may come forward and 
calmly say, as that excessively superficial and illogical writer, 
Jenkyn, does say in his work on the " Extent of the Atonement," 
that " the penalty was not executed on man." They may then, 
as he does, begging the whole question, bring forward their doc- 
trine, and lay it down as in itself an all-sufficient refutation of 
the declaration of the Almighty. Jenkyn does this when he 



The Penalty of Sin. 377 

sustains the above denial by the assertion: "for then there 
would have been no human race. The first pair would have 
been destroyed, and mankind would never have come into 
being." This would be reasoning, if it had been shown that 
death, the penalty of sin, was annihilation, or the utter ceasing 
of existence ; but inasmuch as this has not been shown, there 
is no reasoning in it. It is naked assertion ; nothing more or 
less than Jenkyn versus Jehovah. It cannot be that men who 
reverence the authority of the Bible will be willing long to 
follow such teachers. But must they not follow them and ac- 
cept their contradictions of divine assertions so long as they 
hold that the penalty of sin is extinction of being ? 

We may add, that the position assumed so confidently by 
Jenkyn and " Annihilationists " generally, is shown to be alto- 
gether untenable, by the same test which we have applied to 
the teaching of others who put bodily dissolution into the pen- 
alty of sin. Penalty is not, in that case, removed by pardon. 
If bodily death is the penalty of sin, and this is extinction of 
being, as Jenkyn's words imply, then all the men of past ages, 
from Adam down to the last generation before the present, 
saving only Enoch and Elijah, have suffered it. Pardoned and 
unpardoned have alike been swept away out of being by the 
fell destroyer, who, though he has seen the " blood on the two 
side posts, and on the upper door post of the houses " of the 
penitent and believing, has not " passed over " them. Down 
to the present hour, the penalty of sin, if this be its penalty, 
has been executed on man ; and if we judge the future by the 
past, it will continue to be executed on all, without distinction, 
until the sounding of the last trump. Is it not one of the neces- 
sary consequences of extending the real efficacy and highest pur- 
pose of the Atonement, as this writer does, that it should thus 
cease to have any efficacy whatever, and leave the whole race 
just where it found them ? If, then, we assume that death, the 
penalty of sin, is extinction of being, and that this is accom- 
plished by bodily dissolution, we are compelled, first, to do just 
as Jenkyn does, deny the truth of the Almighty's threatening, 
when He declared to Adam, u in the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die," and, siding with the serpent, 
say, " nevertheless he did not die ; " and then, secondly, the 
solemn fact which history and observation force upon our at- 



378 The Penalty of Sin. 

tention, that all men do die, compels us to deliver over all 
classes of men, pardoned and unpardoned, believers in Christ 
and unbelievers, penitent and impenitent, to the fearful doom 
of the unsaved ; notwithstanding our Lord declares, regarding 
his people, that they shall never perish, and that none shall 
pluck them out of his hands. 

If we are guided by the Scriptures we shall receive from 
them further, in answer to our inquiry, that death, the penalty 
of sin, is something that passed down from Adam upon the 
human race, and became their inheritance, as it was his : " By 
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so 
death passed upon all men." Through the offense of the one 
[tov €fos] the many [ot ttoAAoi] died [airedavov, aorist] — not 
became subject to death, or began to die, but died. That death 
which came upon Adam the day he sinned, went over upon 
and became the portion of the race. As he was not only the 
constituted head of the race, but the race, when he sinned, it 
was the race that sinned when he sinned ; and as he was both 
the constituted head of the race and the race when he died, it 
was the race that died when he died. Whatever death was to 
him, the representative of the race, the day that he sinned and 
all of human nature sinned in him, that death is to that nature, 
in whatever individual it has its embodiment ; and so death, 
whatever it is, is that which passed down through Adam, even 
as human nature itself did, to the race, and became their in- 
heritance, as it was his. It is the constant representation, 
therefore, of the New Testament, that unregenerate men are 
not simply under condemnation, awaiting the execution of the 
death penalty, but that it has already taken effect upon them, 
and they have been devoted to it from the very beginning of 
their existence. They are born into death, and remain under 
its power until they are made alive by the energies of the Holy 
Spirit in their regeneration. 

Hence the Scriptures teach us, thirdly, that death, the penalty 
of sin, is something which is removed from the soul by its re- 
generation. Those passages of the Word of God which sus- 
tain us in making this statement, sustain us also in making 
the statement immediately preceding it. They all presuppose 
and recognize the fact, that every unregenerate man is dead, 
by reason of his unrcgeneracy. A state of death is natural to 



The Penalty of Sin. 379 

him, as a descendant of Adam. The only living men are those 
who have been regenerated. By their regeneration they are 
delivered from death, which is theirs by nature, into life, which 
men never have but by grace. This is the uniform view of the 
New Testament writers, both as to what the salvation of a sin- 
ner is, and as to the method of his salvation. Let us look at a 
few passages in point : " We know," says the Apostle John, 
" that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the 
brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." 
But what was the ground of this assertion ? Why did he and 
those whom he addressed, know that the fact that they loved, 
established the fact that they lived ? Was it not because it is a 
fundamental principle of the gospel, that " love is of God, and 
every one that loveth hath been born of God ? " To love, with 
the love of which the Apostle speaks, is to have been born 
again ; and, by this birth, to have passed from death into life. 
To the same purpose is the declaration of Paul to the Ephe- 
sians, in that noted passage which is at once a key to all his 
teachings on the subject of life and death, in the higher import 
of these terms ; and a summary of what, for want of a better 
form of expression, we may call his theory of the plan of salva- 
tion : " You, who were the children of wrath even as others, 
hath God made alive ; who were — up to the time of his gra- 
cious interposition — dead in trespasses and sins." A little 
further on, putting himself among those whom he was address- 
ing, he adds : " Even when we were dead, God, who is rich in 
mercy, for his great love wherewith He loved us, hath made us 
alive, together with Christ." Nothing, it would seem, could be 
more explicit. That process which changes a child of wrath 
into a child of God, that is, his being born into the family of 
God, his regeneration, makes him alive also from the dead. 
Up to the time of his regeneration he is dead ; by that act he 
is made alive. 

Another characteristic passage, which is full of the same 
thought, is that one in the eighth of Romans, where Paul 
says : " To be carnally minded is death ; but to be spiritually 
minded is life and peace." The same theory of the method of 
salvation is here clearly brought out. On this theory, which, 
be it remembered, is the theory of the Holy Ghost, every man 
is carnal until he is born again by the Spirit of God. This 



380 The Penalty of Sin. 

birth transforms him from a carnal into a spiritual man, and 
thus removes death from him, and causes him to live. 

These passages are decisive of the point under consideration, 
even if they are taken by themselves, isolated from the great 
and fundamental principles involved in the declared necessity 
of regeneration ; but read in the light of these principles, and 
taken, as they must be if taken rightly, as setting forth the 
method and kind of salvation necessitated by them, they give 
us a clearer and more absolute decision, resting on a broader 
foundation than that of mere proof texts. Thus taken, they 
cannot be weakened nor explained away, by the pretext that 
they are only figurative ; but they stand forth, the plain and 
unmistakable recognitions of what is real in the condition of 
the natural and of the spiritual man. 

The Scriptures reply yet further to our inquiry, that death, 
the penalty of sin, is something from which a believer is saved 
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The remark made 
respecting the passages quoted to sustain the preceding prop- 
osition, — that they teach also that all natural men are dead 
— is applicable to the passages which we offer in support of 
this proposition ; they all assume, that is, or plainly declare, 
that all unbelievers are dead. A few passages will be suffi- 
cient, especially as they, too, are not to be regarded as isolated 
proof texts merely, though decisive of the point if thus taken, 
but as the unfolding of the method and kind of salvation neces- 
sitated by the character of man as an unbeliever, and by his 
relation to the divine government. Very marked and decided is 
that passage in the third chapter of John : " He that belie veth 
on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth not the 
Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him." 
The doctrine here taught cannot be misunderstood. If a man 
has not life he is dead ; but life he has not if he is an unbeliever ; 
and the death in which he lies is penalty, because it is that 
which rests upon him in the wrath of God. The same Evan- 
gelist says again, in his first epistle, " He that hath the Son 
hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 
He is dead, therefore, and he can never live, except through 
that agency by which he comes to " have the Son of God ; " 
that is, as the New Testament always teaches, through the ex- 
ercise of faith in the Son of God. Hence it is that our Lord 



The Penalty of Sin. 381 

Himself says : " He that believeth in me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die." From that death which holds the unbeliever 
under its power he is released when he believes. From that 
moment he lives, and through faith in the Redeemer, he is 
thenceforth forever exempt from the claims of death, that is, of 
penalty upon him. We cite but one other passage out of the 
many which bear directly upon this point : " He that heareth 
my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting 
life, and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from 
death unto life." That death which came upon him by sen- 
tence of condemnation, is removed from him through faith. 
These, and kindred passages of the Word of God, taken in 
connection with the constant teaching of the New Testament 
on the subject of life and death as related to penal ty and salva- 
tion, leave us no room to doubt that the doom threatened in 
the penal clause of the law of God, as the punishment of the 
transgressor, is all removed from him when he believes in Him 
whom " God hath exalted, a Prince and a Saviour, to give re- 
pentance and forgiveness of sins." 

Combining now the ideas contained in the two preceding 
statements, we shall have a direct, positive, and satisfactory an- 
swer to our inquiry : What is death the penalty of sin ? First, 
it is that which is removed from the soul by regeneration. 
The immediate purpose and effect of regeneration is, so to 
change the sinner's moral nature that he shall cease to be an 
enemy and become a lover of God. His enmity to God is the 
special object towards which the energies of the Holy Spirit 
are directed when he transforms the sinner from a child of 
wrath into a son of God. Enmity dies away under the Spirit's 
mighty operation upon the sinner's heart, and love is created 
in its stead. This is the simple purpose and result of regen- 
eration. When it has accomplished this it has done all its 
work ; for, with love to God come, in their germs at least, 
every other grace and power of the spiritual man ; as enmity 
to God carries with it every evil tendency, and all the intense 
selfishness and carnality of natural man. He is then a child of 
God. All the elements of character that make one a child of 
God are within him, and they need only the fostering influ- 
ences of sanctifying grace to develop and perfect them, so that 



S82 The Penalty of Sin. 

he shall be " perfect man," having attained " unto the measure 
of the stature of the fullness of Christ." These principles are 
so obvious to every reader of the New Testament that we need 
not confirm them by any quotations. 

That, then, which regeneration specially and directly removes 
from the soul of a sinner, is his enmity to God, and alienation 
of heart from Him and holiness. These filled the soul of Adam, 
as they would fill the soul of any other hitherto holy moral 
agent, the day that he sinned. When he chose to disobey the 
command of God, all holy love died within him, and he found 
himself in utter alienation from his Maker. His soul had lost 
all its power and disposition to commune with God, " the foun- 
tain of life ; " and his enjoyment of Him and of holiness ceased, 
as a stream ceases when it is cut off from its fountain. Into 
this condition of enmity and alienation, and godlessness, lie 
came the day that he sinned. He separated himself from God. 
This was his death. The innermost idea of death is that of 
separation ; and the innermost idea of the death of the soul is 
its separation from God. To lose all love for God, and to be 
cut off, by this want of love, from all communion with and en- 
joyment of Him and of holiness, and to come thus under the 
dominion of evil desires, as opposed to those which are good, 
this is the death which is wrought in the soul " by trespasses 
and sins." This is the death out of which it is quickened — 
made alive — by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. 

This is death viewed in its effects within the sinner himself : 
his moral character is such, that, by his very nature, he is not 
spiritual, but carnal ; not godly, but selfish — incapable of en- 
joying God or holiness ; separated by an impassable gulf from 
both. But this is not all. Unsaved sinners are not only en- 
emies of God — God is their enemy. " He is angry with the 
wicked." As the Executive of a holy but violated law, He 
holds them under sentence of condemnation. His wrath abides 
upon them. They are in displeasure, and are not permitted to 
come into his presence. He thus separates them from Him- 
self, the fountain of life, to be separated from which is to die, 
whether sinners cut themselves off by the ungodliness and car- 
nality of their own characters, or the Almighty cuts them off 
in his anger, and by judicial abandonment of them on account 
of their sins. In either case the separation is death. In the 



The Penalty of Sin. 383 

latter it is death viewed as an effect pressing upon the soul 
from without, and sinking it forever away from all that is de- 
sirable in the favor of God, and in the bliss of his presence, 
into all that is terrible in his wrath and in eternal banishment 
from his presence. 

This is the death which is removed through faith in the Son 
of God. The immediate purpose and effect of faith is so to 
change the relation of sinners to God, the Executive of a vio- 
lated law, that He ceases to hold them under condemnation. 
Through faith they pass out from the judicial anger of the 
Lawgiver whom they have offended, and come into his favor. 
His wrath no longer abides on them ; but, from that moment, 
He bestows on them all the fullness of his love. He no longer 
separates them from Himself as criminals and enemies, but 
welcomes them to his presence as his children. Faith thus re- 
unites them with God, the fountain of life ; and his " favor 
which is life," flows forth in streams of infinite love into their 
souls, and they live forever. Death gives place to life ; con- 
demnation and penalty to judicial favor and justification. They 
have thus " passed from death unto life." 

These two things, on the one hand, enmity or godlessness and 
carnality, separating the soul from God by their very nature ; 
and on the other hand, the wrath of God and judicial aban- 
donment and banishment from God, and from heaven ; these, 
and only these, are removed from the sinner by his regenera- 
tion and his faith. These two things fell upon Adam the day 
that he sinned. They are removed from a sinner when he is 
pardoned. By their removal the Scriptures declare that he 
passes from death unto life. Is it not certain that by their com- 
ing upon him he passed from life unto death ? and that these 
are the elements of that death which is the penalty of sin ? 

This has been the state of natural man ever since the fall, 
and, therefore, he has ever since been under penalty. But 
though penalty was executed, and man died the day that he 
sinned, yet the circumstances under which the race was placed 
were at once modified by mercy. Justice had its course ; but 
mercy was permitted to step in and alleviate the condition 
of the criminal, to the utmost possible extent consistent with 
righteousness. The race had had their probation, and lost it, 
under law. Mercy secured for them a new probation under 
grace. She was permitted because of " the Lamb slain from 



384 The Penalty of Sin. 

the foundation of the world," to carry to the condemned, who 
were already in penalty, the offer and the terms of pardon. 
While she waits to see what response men will make to her 
offers, she is allowed to stay, to a great extent, the fearful train 
of evils which penalty would otherwise drag after it. She has 
thus come into our prison-house and filled it with the light of 
her presence ; and she continues to employ all the mighty re- 
sources put into her hands by infinite love, in bettering the 
condition of the already lost, that she may bring them to salva- 
tion. The unpardoned are, therefore, in a state of mitigated 
penalty, while they remain in this world ; the pardoned are in 
a state of disciplinary training for a state where none of the 
evil consequences of sin will be found. 

The probation of grace will end. Then mercy will have 
nothing further to do with the unpardoned. The dark inherit- 
ance of godlessness and carnality, and of banishment from God 
and heaven, which they have chosen for themselves by trans- 
gression, and confirmed and augmented by the rejection of the 
Son of God, will be entered upon in its unmitigated fearfulness. 
When this event comes, and penalty is left to do its awful 
work, without the alleviations which a gracious probation se- 
cured for a sinner here ; when, that is, the selfishness and car- 
nality of the sinner's heart, his enmity to God and holiness, are 
left to revel, unchecked by any of the circumstances, or influ- 
ences for good, that now surround him ; when the anger of an 
offended and insulted God strikes directly upon his soul, with- 
out those merciful refractions that now so lessen its consuming 
power ; when mercy, that has held him up hitherto from the 
lower depths into which unalleviated penalty would have sunk 
him, holding him that she might offer him pardon and eternal 
life — when mercy withdraws her hand from beneath him, and 
her influences from about him, and the sentence comes from 
the throne of Him who has been waiting to see the result of 
the probation of grace, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels : " then, when 
death becomes the fixed portion of the soul, and hope of salva- 
tion is forever withdrawn, and it is given over, out of the hands 
of mercy to eternal banishment from God and heaven, after 
having had the opportunity of coming back to Him, then the 
sinner enters into the second death, from which even infinite 
mercy and love cannot deliver him. 



GRIFFIN ON DIVINE EFFICIENCY. 



THE immediate occasion of this treatise was a review, in the 
December number of the " Christian Spectator " for 1831, 
of a sermon by the celebrated Methodist divine, Wilbur Fisk, 
D. D., on " Predestination and Election." The review was 
understood to have been written by Professor Eliazar T. Fitch, 
of New Haven, Conn., and seemed to Dr. Griffin, then Presi- 
dent of Williams College, and one of the foremost and most 
noted champions of Orthodoxy in New England, to be, not what 
its author claimed for it, a fair statement and defense of Cal- 
vinistic, as opposed to Arminian views on these subjects, but a 
denial of them, and a giving up of all the ground involved in 
the controversy between Calvinists and Arminians. A more 
remote occasion of the writing of the work before us was found 
in a series of articles in tne first volume of the " Christian Spec- 
tator" (1829), reviewing Dr. Gardiner Spring's dissertation on 
" The Means of Regeneration." These articles were written 
by Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor of New Haven, and seemed to 
Dr. Griffin, like the article of Dr. Fitch, to teach, not Scrip- 
tural Calvinism, but rationalistic Arminianism. Though both 
of the New Haven professors held firmly to the use of Calvin- 
istic terms throughout their discussions, and in all their writings, 
yet the explanations of them which they gave, and the uses to 
which they put them, seemed to Dr. Griffin to justify him in 
pronouncing some portions of New Haven theology false and 
dangerous, and in arraigning them before the world for public 
condemnation. 

There was yet another, though much less influential occasion 
for the writing of this treatise, in the publication, about this 
time, of a pamphlet, or pamphlets, denying the doctrine of 
Divine Efficiency, as it was commonly held by Calvinists, but 

1 Read to a Theological Circle, at the United States Hotel, Tuesday after- 
noon, January 10, 1865. 

25 



386 Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 

ascribing to God an absolute dominion over the minds of moral 
beings by mere motives. The authors of these pamphlets 
fancied that they had relieved the doctrine of divine sovereignty 
of the most serious, if not of all real objections, when they had 
transferred its absoluteness from direct influence upon mind by 
the agency of the Holy Spirit, to an indirect influence through 
the instrumentality of motives. But their teachings seemed to 
Dr. Griffin not only not to relieve the doctrine of sovereign 
efficiency of any difficulties, but to be flatly opposed to the 
facts of consciousness and to the Word of God. 

These various writings indicate to us pretty clearly the class 
of topics that most occupied the thoughts of New England 
theologians thirty-five years ago; and at the same time, we 
think, mark a new era in the history of New England Ortho- 
doxy. All other subjects were thrown into the background 
by those which pertained to the method and character of God's 
government of moral agents, and to the nature and grounds of 
moral obligation. It was around these as centres, and for their 
elucidation, that the master minds of that day continually 
moved. With these prominently and mainly in view they 
were incessantly discussing, and debating upon, " Predesti- 
nation," " Election," Decrees," " The Permission of Sin," 
" Human Depravity," " Atonement," " Regeneration," " Per- 
severance," every subject, indeed, that pertained directly to the 
relations of God to moral beings, and their relations to his 
moral government, whether under the law or under the gospel. 
Herein the treatment of these great subjects differed then from 
their treatment at other times. Before this they had been 
discussed rather as isolated truths and for their own sake. 
Formerly, more than now, it had been counted enough to attack 
or defend them as true or false in themselves, each by itself an 
independent centre ; now they must stand or fall just as they 
could, or could not, be made to harmonize with the assumed 
principles of moral government and moral agency, considered 
not so much in the light of the Scriptures, as in that of specula- 
tive reasoning, and so-called common sense. 

These were the topics discussed with most earnestness. The 
manner in which they were discussed marked the new era, of 
which we spoke, in New England Orthodoxy. The stern 
metaphysical theology of Edwards and Belamy and Hopkins, 



Grriffin on Divine Efficiencg. 387 

and their immediate successors, the exponents of New England 
Orthodoxy in their time, had been, for the most part, made to 
bow reverently to the teachings of the Bible. The Bible in its 
plain and obvious sense was the supreme authority. No pro- 
fundity of thought, or acuteness of reasoning, could place any 
principle on a basis firm enough to stand for a moment against 
what was manifestly the general scope of the Scriptures ; nor 
support a speculation that required the wresting of a single text 
which clearly affirmed a sentiment opposed to it. It was left for 
avowed Universalists, Unitarians, and Neologists to " explain 
away " such passages of Scripture as were not in harmony with 
their opinions ; or to set them aside altogether by ingenious 
glosses, or conjectural emendations of the sacred text. The 
spirit of all those early fathers of New England Orthodoxy still 
lived in Dr. Griffin, and often found expression in his writings. 
Thus, in the work before us, he writes (p. 80) : "I believe 
this because I find it in my Bible : and while it is there, I will 
lie down upon it and hold it as with the grasp of death, even 
though as unable to understand it as to understand how God 
could exist without a beginning or a cause." Again, in the 
introduction to his work on the Atonement, he says : " In one 
principle both parties are agreed; that our instructions on this 
subject are to be drawn from the Scriptures alone, and not 
from bold and presumptuous speculations. Reason has only to 
kneel and ask what the oracle says. Her province is to ascer- 
tain the meaning of the sacred page by comparing Scripture 
with Scripture, and, in one description of cases (but not with- 
out great caution and humility), with common sense. The test 
of common sense is to be applied only to distinguish between 
the figurative and literal meaning of texts which were obviously 
intended to be subjected to such scrutiny." " To this conclu- 
sion," he says, in a note at the close of one of his arguments in 
the Park Street Lectures, — "To this conclusion, the author 
has conceived himself driven by the Word of God. Any ques- 
tion connected with the subject which is not decided by that 
arbiter, he dares not touch." 

It was the same with all Dr. Griffin's immediate predecessors 
in the orthodox churches of New England. They indeed 
shrunk from the study of no subject however high or recondite 
or sacred connected with the being and government of God, or 



388 G-riffin on Divine Efficiency. 

the character or interests or destiny of men, considered as im- 
mortal and subjects of moral government. They pressed their 
inquiries on these subjects with the utmost daring, and even 
with pertinacity. Nothing could daunt them or turn them 
back ; • and, in every department of speculative theology where 
the Scriptures did not come in to modify or contradict their 
speculations, after having applied to them the tests of their 
keen, inexorable logic, they stood by them, defended them, and 
acted upon them, as, in certainty and authority, second to only 
the Bible itself. But they were always held, reverently and 
submissively, second to this. 

At the time of which we speak, however, this reverence for 
the Scriptures had sensibly declined. The leaders of religious 
thought, especially the two New Haven professors, but most 
of all Dr. Taylor, who was just then beginning as a young 
giant to rejoice in his strength, and who, whether right or 
wrong, has, we think, given direction, more than any other 
man, to the instructions from New England pulpits for the 
past thirty years, had begun boldly to invade the domain of 
Scriptural authority, and while holding the leadership in recog- 
nized Orthodoxy, were not only solving all the great questions 
that had so long taxed the master minds of their fathers, and 
reducing these questions to place in their systems, without once 
applying to them the measuring line of the Word of God, but 
were beginning to apply to the Word of God itself the tests of 
their own reasonings and boasted common sense, not to learn 
from it what God had revealed, but what, from a priori con- 
siderations, He must reveal if He spoke at all on the subjects 
which were under discussion. 

This is the new era in the history of New England theology 
to which we have referred. It was marked by the inaugura- 
tion into acknowledged Orthodoxy of what is commonly styled 
New Haven Divinity. Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor was its ruling 
spirit. And yet, this new era with Dr. Taylor, and his semi- 
rationalistic Orthodoxy, was but the legitimate result and nat- 
ural outgrowth of the speculative theology of the previous cen- 
tury. That theology, and the character of mind and habit of 
thought involved in its study, must of necessity develop, first, 
the rationalistic Orthodoxy of New Haven ; and next, the pure 
Rationalism of Cambridge, if the minds that are trained under 



Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 889 

it are not held in check by the gracious teachings and regen- 
erating influences of the Holy Spirit by which the fathers were 
held back from presuming upon intellectual infallibleness, and 
kept in humble and willing subjection to the authority of the 
divine Word. Give to any class of religious thinkers with a 
New England education the intense mental vigor and activity, 
and intellectual acumen that these men possessed, and you have 
only to withhold from them the humility that was so conspicu- 
ous a part of their piety, to constitute them thorough rationalists. 
If these thinkers are the sons of the godly New England divines 
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they will, at first, 
perhaps for a whole generation, be so far under the influence of 
traditional respect for the Bible as to save them from utterly 
rejecting it ; but yet they will chafe under its authority, and 
they will strive in all ways but by its open rejection, to eman- 
cipate themselves from it. They will, therefore, hold nominally 
to the Scriptures as a revelation from God, and nominally give 
them the supremacy over all the reasonings and speculations of 
the human mind on religious subjects ; but where they conflict 
with these reasonings and speculations, the tendency will be, 
not any longer as the fathers did, to correct them by the Scrip- 
tures, but so to interpret the Scriptures as to bring them into 
harmony with the reasonings and speculations. 

This is incipient Rationalism. Let, now, the traditional rever- 
ence for the Bible which these men have inherited from their 
fathers, be removed, or very materially lessened, and you will 
have a class of thinkers ready to sit in judgment on the Scrip- 
tures themselves, and while, perhaps, not denying to them all 
authority as a revelation in some sort from God, yet so cir- 
cumscribing that authority, and handling the Word itself so 
irreverently, and so exalting their own intellects above it as a 
revealer of truth and a guide to the soul, that all real authority 
will be taken from the Bible, and there will no longer be any 
final appeal to it, and no serious attempts made to cover up the 
glaring discrepancies between it and their own sentiments. So 
far as the Scriptures are in harmony with their ways of think- 
ing it is all very well. They are very likely, thus far, to be 
the Word of God. Whenever, on the other hand, the Scrip- 
tures happen to be in conflict with their ways of thinking, it is 
of little consequence. In that they cannot be the Word of 



390 Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 

God. They are thus far entitled to only that measure of re 
spect that is due to any other merely human productions, whose 
authors were doubtless well-meaning men, and, for the most 
part, regarded what they wrote as truth ; but being human, 
and subject to all the ignorance and errors and prejudices of 
their times, very naturally fell into many and serious mistakes. 
These are to be corrected by men of a more liberal culture and 
more comprehensive minds. It is not to be supposed that a 
book the last pages of which were written nearly two thousand 
years ago, should be a sufficient treasury of religious truths for 
an enlightened and scientific age like the present. The prog- 
ress of society and the elevation of the race will involve and 
necessitate the discovery of new truths in religion, the correct- 
ing of former mistakes, and the doing away of old dogmas. 
While, therefore, we respect the Bible as having done very 
well for men of an earlier and less enlightened age, as, indeed, 
having in it very much that is true and adapted to ourselves, 
yet our own thinking, or it may be, our own intuitions must 
supplement what is truth in the Bible, and discriminate be- 
tween what is truth there, and what is error. 

This is New England Rationalism in its second stage of 
development. You have to carry it but one step farther and 
its maturity is attained. Let traditional reverence for the 
Scriptures lose its last hold upon the still earnest and vigorous 
intellect, let the last traces of the humility of true piety be 
effaced, and let intellectual pride be advanced to its long 
coveted supremacy, and the work is done. Theodore Parker 
then stands before the world the embodiment of perfected New 
England Rationalism, the legitimate fruit, the necessary result 
of rationalistic New England Orthodoxy. 

It fell to the lot of Dr. Griffin to be associated and to act 
with men who were in the first of these three stages of rational- 
istic development, and to witness the acceptance of their senti- 
ments as orthodox by many of the New England churches. He 
clearly saw the dangerous tendency of these sentiments, if not 
to Unitarianism and Infidelity, certainly to mislead awakened 
sinners, and corrupt the ministry of the gospel, and felt him- 
self called upon to put forth every endeavor to correct it, and 
save to the pulpit, and other methods of religious instruction 
and address, not only the u form of sound words," but the 



Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 391 

truthful and saving ideas which those words had from time 
immemorial conveyed to the Christian mind. This work on 
divine efficiency was one of the fruits of his labors in this direc- 
tion. Possessing as he did in so large a degree the piety that 
can never exalt God too highly, nor too scrupulously guard his 
throne against the assaults and encroachments of pride, he was 
shocked at the daring attempts of his brethren to wrench the 
sceptre of grace from the hand of the Almighty, and give to 
sinners themselves all the glory of their own salvation by in- 
vesting them with a self-sovereignty so complete and so inde- 
pendent of God that He stood powerless before the majesty of 
their lordly wills. He was alarmed to see opinions received as 
true and evangelical, which, to his view, left the holiness of 
both saints and angels no securer foundation to rest upon than 
that which is found in their own feebleness, and liability to 
temptation. He was pained and saddened to hear men who 
were counted orthodox, and, as such, had power over the public 
mind, directing perishing sinners to turn away their eyes from 
God as their only strength and righteousness, and to find in 
themselves and their own wills all they needed to transform 
them from children of wrath into children of God and heirs of 
heaven. He therefore girded himself to the work of saving 
his favorite doctrine from the perils into which it had been 
brought, lest, by its abandonment, the honor of God as the 
author of salvation and holiness should be tarnished and sinners 
should go down to death trusting their own works and not sub- 
mitting themselves to the righteousness of God. That it was 
his favorite doctrine, and that it was so essential to the honor 
of God, and the well-being of men, he plainly declares on the 
first page of his Introduction : " I regard our dependence on 
divine efficiency," he says, " as one of the sweetest doctrines 
of the Bible, and know it to be most deeply felt under the 
special effusions of the Spirit. Take from me my dependence 
on God, and I must despair. I consider, too, the honor of rais- 
ing to spiritual life a world dead in trespasses and sins, as one 
of the brightest glories of the Godhead ; and I have been 
grieved at my very heart to see this honor taken away. This 
has been the severest cut of all." 

The work is divided into an Introduction and ten chapters. 
In the Introduction he deprecates the tendency of religious con- 



392 Griffin on Divine Efficiency, 

troversy to awaken unhallowed passions ; but hopes that he 
shall maintain, throughout this discussion, a kind spirit and 
good-will towards his brethren, " all of whom," he says, " I re- 
spect, and some of whom are my personal friends." Here, also, 
he defines his meaning of the term " Divine Efficiency," gives 
the two theories of modern origin that deny it and endeavors, 
in a few words, to show without entering into details that the 
one broached and defended by Drs. Taylor and Fitch, is in 
its most essential points, especially that pertaining to the self- 
determining power, perfectly at one with Arminianism. 

" By divine efficiency," he says, " I mean the effectual power 
of God immediately applied to the heart to make it holy. This 
is the meaning which the Calvinistic world have always given 
to the phrase; and no man has a right to use it in another 
sense, and set off a contrary doctrine or otherwise. Nor may 
I be accused of wrongfully charging a denial of divine effi- 
ciency, because some may choose to wrap up another doctrine 
under this name." 

The aim of chapter I. is to show, from Dr. Fitch's article 
itself, that the theory exhibited in his review of Dr. Fisk's 
sermon, " is," to use Dr. Griffin's own words, " one half the 
way, pure Arminianism ; and the other half, it assumes the 
high language of Calvinism, with an Arminian meaning two 
thirds of the way, and for the other third, a Calvinistic mean- 
ing wholly at variance with the rest of the system." Dr. Grif- 
fin endeavors to show this, first, by spreading out the theory 
so plainly that " every one can understand it ; " and, secondly, 
by giving " copious extracts " from the " Review " in confirma- 
tion of his statements. 

The half of Dr. Fitch's theory, which is pronounced " pure 
Arminianism," is that part of it which pointedly denies the 
fact of " divine efficiency." In this Dr. Fitch declares that " if 
God should attempt to make men holy by efficient power, they 
would not be holy after all, for they would not be moral agents ; 
that all He can do is to throw truth upon their understanding 
and conscience by his illuminating Spirit, and leave the result 
to the self-determining power, which is capable of yielding to 
the motives and capable of resisting any influence winch God 
can bring." 

The two thirds of the last half of Dr. Fitch's theory pertain 



G-riffin on Divine Efficiency. 393 

to the doctrines of election and regeneration. Here it is that 
he uses " the highest Calvinistic language, but with a meaning 
entirely Arminian." " He says that by the Word and Spirit 
God insures the regeneration of Peter and John, and, accord- 
ing to an eternal purpose, selects them from the ruins of the 
Apostacy. He presses the doctrine of election in the strongest 
possible terms. But how does God insure regeneration ? and 
what is the election contended for ? Why, He insures the re- 
generation of Peter and John by urging upon them motives to 
which He foresaw that they, by the self-determining power, 
would yield. His mere determination to do this was the eter- 
nal decree of election." 

11 The other third of the last half of the way," wherein Dr. 
Fitch is said to use Calvinistic language and support the Cal- 
vinistic theory, but with entire inconsistency with the rest of 
his system, pertains to the doctrine of the perseverance of the 
regenerate. At this point, Dr. Griffin presses his opponent 
with his Arminian principles till the certainty of perseverance 
becomes very dubious. " If God does nothing for Peter but 
offer motives which the self-determining power is to yield to or 
reject, there are a million of chances to one that Peter will fall 
away. Satan fell away from perfect holiness ; Adam fell away 
from perfect holiness : a million to one Peter will fall away 
from imperfect holiness, in a world full of temptations, with 
all his appetites and former habits set against him, unless he is 
kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.' I 
beg to know what makes it certain that a single Christian will 
persevere. God's foreknowledge ? That foresees a thing al- 
ready certain, but does not make it certain." In other parts 
of the work Dr. Griffin asserts and endeavors to show that fore- 
knowledge is impossible, at least that it is impossible for us to 
conceive of it as possible, on the principle of the self-determin- 
ing power, as held by Drs. Taylor and Fitch, and all Armin- 
ians. His words are (p. 193), " Indeed, it is an overwhelm- 
ing argument against this self-determining power, that it would 
shut out all the actions of creatures from his foresight, and 
leave the whole moral universe for the future to Him a perfect 
blank." Again : " As the success or failure [of using means 
for the salvation of both those who improve them and are 
saved, and those who neglect them and are lost] must depend 



394 Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 

on the self-determining power which lies beyond his control, 
He could not, so far as we can conceive, have foreseen the re- 
sult." With this in view, the next question which he presses 
upon Dr. Fitch becomes yet more pointed : " How came it to 
pass that God, not as a mere prediction of what the self-deter- 
mining power would do, but as a promise of what He himself 
would accomplish in reward of Christ, pledged Himself to Him 
that they all should remain steadfast ? The doctrine of perse- 
verance can consist with nothing but God's absolute dominion 
over mind, either by efficiency or by motives." Dr. Griffin 
justly adds, in closing his analysis of Dr. Fitch's views on this 
subject, " if this doctrine is true the rest of Dr. Fitch's theory 
falls." i . 

Chapter II. is an attempt to show that Dr. Taylor, whom 
Dr. Griffin counts his chief antagonist, has, in his articles on 
Regeneration, " exactly revived the old Arminian doctrine 
that the chief obstruction [to holiness] caused by bad affections 
lies in their drawing away the attention from divine truth ; and 
that nothing is necessary on the part of God but to illumine 
the understanding by his Spirit." " Dr. Taylor," he says, 
" everywhere denies divine efficiency, and limits the agency of 
the Spirit to the mere presentation of motives. Of course he 
must have the same views of predestination and election (both 
of which he strenuously maintains) that Dr. Fitch has ex- 
pressed. Dr. Taylor holds that God can create a being consti- 

1 Assuming that Dr. Griffin has rightly stated the views of Dr. Fitch (p. 13), 
to pray for the converting influences of the Spirit is an absurdity. If God has then 
done " the best He can by his Spirit for every individual, and therefore as much 
for one as for another," why pray Him to do yet more ? God is asked to do what 
He can't do, in two respects, — first, because He has already done the best He could 
— his own resources are exhausted; and, secondly (since the idea of efficiency is 
discarded), because there is no such thing as absolutely converting or regenerating 
influence. The man converts and regenerates himself, in view of motives. So to 
pray that God would convert or regenerate a man is to ask God to do, first, what 
He can't do ; and, secondly, what only the man himself can do. 

Assuming, as above, that Dr. Griffin has rightly stated Dr. Fitch's views of elec- 
tion (p. 14), then God elected Peter and John only, because He saw that they 
would elect themselves ; i. e. God could not help electing them since He foresaw 
they would elect themselves. The only election God had in the matter was by 
creating them to give them a chance to do what they were a mind to regardless of 
Him, or anything He could do. 

Pages 15, 16, top. Nothing could make the salvation of any one certain but 
efficiency, — God could not foresee or foreknow a thing as certain which was con- 
tingent, — and, therefore, could not promise any seed to Christ. 



Griffin on Divine .Efficiency. 895 

tutionally qualified to act without being acted upon ; that the 
angels are independent for holiness ; that man would need no 
divine interposition but for his obstinate depravity ; that this 
renders necessary a more urgent pressure of motives by the 
Spirit, to draw his attention from the world and fix it upon di- 
vine truth ; that there is in man a constitutional susceptibility 
to the good exhibited in divine truth, founded in self-love or 
the desire of happiness ; that consequently there is in the close 
consideration of truth a tendency to excite the love of truth ; 
that as the Spirit does nothing but fix. the attention upon 
truths most calculated to persuade, consideration only acts in a 
line with the Spirit, and has the same tendency in the moment 
of conversion as before ; that consideration produces feeling, 
and feeling, consideration, while the Spirit by the clear presen- 
tation of truth promotes both ; that without this consideration 
God cannot regenerate ; " and much more to the same effect. 

All the inferences which Dr. Griffin draws from the princi- 
ples laid down by Dr. Taylor in these articles, are sustained, 
and all the objections which he urges against Dr. Taylor's 
views of regeneration, are more than justified by a recipe for 
regeneration which Dr. Taylor gives in the first number of the 
" Christian Spectator," and which we do not find that Dr. Griffin 
l^as anywhere directly referred to. We commend this recipe 
to the attention of all who have entered with Dr. Taylor upon 
the first stage of rationalistic development, and have in conse- 
quence become so far free from the trammels of hereditary 
reverence for the authority of the Bible, as to disbelieve that 
the regenerate were " born not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ; " and to take issue 
with our Saviour when He declares that " the wind bloweth 
where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst 
not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every 
one that is born of the Spirit." Dr. Taylor's recipe for regen- 
eration is this : 1 " Let the sinner then, as a being who loves 
happiness and desires the highest degree of it, under the influ- 
ence of such a desire, take into solemn consideration the ques- 
tion whether the highest happiness is to be found in God or in 
the world ; let him pursue this inquiry, if need be, till it result 
in the conviction that such happiness is to be found in God 

1 Christian Spectator, vol. i. pp. 32, sq. 



396 Griffin on Divine Efficiency, 

only ; and let him follow up this conviction with that intent 
and engrossing contemplation of the realities which truth dis- 
closes, and with that stirring up of his sensibilities in view of 
them, which shall invest the world, when considered as his only- 
portion, with an aspect of insignificance, of gloom, and even of 
terror, and which shall chill and suspend his present active love 
of it ; and let the contemplation be persevered in, till it shall 
discover a reality and an excellence in the objects of holy affec- 
tion, which shall put him upon direct and desperate efforts to 
fix his heart upon them ; and let this process of thought, of 
effort, and of action be entered upon as one which is never to 
be abandoned, until the end proposed by it is accomplished, — 
until the only living and true God is loved and chosen as his God 
forever ; and we say, that in this way the work of his regener- 
ation, through grace, may be accomplished. In this way he 
may become a child of God." 

There is here no regenerating Spirit ; no turning with the 
cry for mercy to a crucified and risen Saviour ; no recognition 
of the need of pardon ; no acknowledgment whatever of God. 
A sinner whose mind is enmity against God, which is not sub- 
ject to his law and cannot be ; who is a child of wrath, and 
under righteous condemnation as a transgressor ; this one may, 
without pardon, without the help of God, without even the 
consent of God, transform himself, by a mere act of thinking, 
into a child of God, and force himself upon God as such ! 
And all this directly in face of the explicit declaration of the 
Bible that " the natural man receiveth not the things of the 
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can 
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned ; " and 
all this, moreover, in a series of articles especially intended to 
show that there is no such thing as a sinner's using this means 
of salvation. And not only this, not only may the sinner thus 
regenerate his own soul, but without this process of independ- 
ent, self-begun, and self-sustained mental exertion, there can 
be no regeneration. This Dr. Taylor distinctly asserts a few 
pages further on in his essay : " Regeneration, though always 
to be ascribed to the grace of God " [out of a lingering respect 
to the authority of the Bible], " is action on the part of the sin- 
ner, and can never take place, unless the objects of holy affec- 
tion are brought before the mind as objects on which the affec- 



Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 397 

tions are now to be fixed." Infant regeneration is therefore an 
impossibility, and never takes place. If death passed upon all 
men, even upon those who had not sinned after the similitude 
of Adam's transgression, then, unless they come to years of 
mature thought, sufficiently mature, at least, to go through this 
process of comparison and choosing, they never live. These 
souls cannot be regenerated. They must abide eternally in 
death ! 

Among the passages which Dr. Griffin selects from Dr. Tay- 
lor's articles to show his views of regeneration, is one which 
we notice not as a recipe, but rather as giving the rationale of 
regeneration without divine efficiency : " The sinner desires ac- 
ceptance with God, — contemplated simply under one relation, 
namely, as the only means of deliverance from punishment. 
Nor is this a selfish state of mind [though self-love is supreme ! 
— Dr. G.] , but rather a state of mind which is necessarily 
involved in the mental process of turning from sin to holiness. 
The supreme affections of his heart being detached from the 
world, the grand obstacle to his preferring a deliverance from 
punishment to the only object that can come into competition 
with it, is removed. And now, according to the laws of volun- 
tary action, nothing is wanting to lead forth the heart in holy 
affection to God, but clear, just, and vivid views of his glories. 
Those glories are yet veiled. Still, however, he is willing to 
fix, and does in fact fix, the eye of contemplation on the object 
of holy affection, and does, with such glimpses of his glories as 
he may obtain, feel their attractions and summon his heart to 
the love of God." 

We cannot but agree with our author in the remarks that he 
subjoins to his review of this process of regeneration : " This is 
on the whole just such a journey as I should expect a supremely 
selfish man and totally depraved sinner would make in his own 
strength from sin to holiness. Treading selfishness under his 
feet with a heart caring for nothing but himself ; panting with 
' truly sincere desire, for acceptance with God,' while blind to 
his excellence, and caring for nothing but to shield himself 
from punishment ; completely detached from the world, and 
justly prepared to give his heart to God as soon as he can obtain 
4 clear, just, and vivid views of his glories,' the precise things 
that never were seen but by holy eyes ; put upon using the 



398 Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 

means of regeneration when the act cannot possibly precede 
regeneration itself. If this is the road travelled by the self-de- 
termining power, surely ' the way of the transgressor is hard. 1 
I should hope that this single attempt might discourage the 
nations from essaying to go in this new path. Surely it is 
better to ' go in the strength of the Lord God ; ' to ' make 
mention of his righteousness, even of his only.' ' : 

It would seem to be a sufficient refutation of all Dr. Taylor's 
theory of the process of regeneration to say what Dr. Griffin 
has not said directly in reply, that if the carnal mind is enmity 
against God, then the more clearly God is seen the more in- 
tensely will He be hated. So that the truth that reveals God, 
cannot, by any amount of clearness, or power in its presenta- 
tion, cause an unregenerate man to love God. This cannot be 
denied unless it can be shown that hate intensified is turned 
into love by the process of becoming intensified. 

Chapter III. is a brief notice of two other writers, one of 
whom especially had criticised, unfairly, as Dr. Griffin thought, 
his views of natural ability, and had misrepresented the prin- 
ciples of New England Calvinism respecting this subject. This 
chapter adds little or nothing to the argument of Dr. Griffin, 
and is of little importance beyond this one distinct statement : 
" There is no difference between me and the reviewer about 
natural ability, except that I place it in the faculties of a mind 
dependent on God for holiness, and he places it in faculties that 
move themselves to holy action without divine efficiency." 
Dr. Griffin had treated this whole subject of " ability " far 
better, and more satisfactorily, as an answer to his reviewer, in 
the tenth of his " Park Street Lectures," and might better 
have left it as it was there, against all that his opponent could 
have said, than to have brought it into this work. 

He then holds that men have all the faculties necessary to 
make them responsible ; that they ought to love God ; that the 
only reason they do not is not the lack of capacity to do it, but 
of a disposition to do it. The lack, therefore, is moral, not 
natural. They have a natural ability in the very fact of pos- 
sessing faculties — and all the faculties needed — to love God ; 
all the faculties that even the regenerate, and the most holy 
saints in heaven have. 

In chapter IV. the author addresses himself directly to the 



Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 399 

task of discussing his subject independently, without special 
reference to opposers, by unfolding " the meaning and origin of 
corrupt nature." A single paragraph, the second in the chap- 
ter, contains the essence of the whole, and puts Dr. Griffin's 
theory of the origin of sin, and his boldness as a theorizer, be- 
fore us with very satisfactory distinctness. It shows him as a 
real descendant of the daring metaphysical speculators that 
had just passed from the stage of theological discussion, — the 
Edwardses, Hopkins, Bellamy, Emmons, " et id omne genus." 
" Self-love," he begins, " consists in the desire of happiness 
and aversion to misery, or in loving to gratify our personal 
tastes and feelings. This is essential to a rational and even to 
a sensitive nature. This had Adam before the fall ; but divine 
efficiency wrought in him supreme love to God, which kept 
self-love in due subjection. As soon as God withdrew his 
sanctifying influence (and that He did sovereignly and not as 
a punishment), Adam's self-love became supreme (there can 
be no rivals for supreme affection but God and self), and of 
course turned to selfishness, and, as soon as God was presented 
in his law, to ' enmity against God.' For all this no positive 
act was necessary on the part of God but to uphold Adam's 
rational existence. If Adam does not love his Maker su- 
premely, he must with supreme desire seek the. means of his 
own personal gratification, or cease to have a rational soul. 
Now that proneness to gratify himself, growing out of the ab- 
sence of love to God and the presence of self-love turned to 
selfishness, or perhaps I may more propei'ly say, that combina- 
tion of inward circumstances out of which will infallibly arise 
the exercises of selfishness and enmity against God, constitutes 
the corrupt nature or temper of which I speak. While his 
rational existence is continued, and while he does not love God, 
it must be his nature to be selfish, and to hate God when God 
sets Himself against him in his law, as much as it is in the na- 
ture of the serpent to bite and of the lion to be carnivorous. 
The difference between the two cases is this : The nature of 
the serpent and lion depends on their physical formation ; the 
nature of Adam, on the absence of love to God which he 
ought to exercise. He is to blame for that state of things, — 
for that nature or aptitude, — and therefore is a moral nature. 
If one must love his own happiness in case he is even sentient, 



400 Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 

then a man who does not love God must, anterior in the order 
of nature to his selfishness, have an infallible aptitude to self- 
ishness. If the soul must have desires after something or cease 
to be, and must be influenced by the greatest apparent good, 
then a man who loves himself supremely and God not at all, 
must have a preparation within him (consisting perhaps in the 
mere relation of things), to hate God when God comes to be 
seen arrayed against him in his law. When God reproduced 
supreme and habitual love to Himself in Adam's heart, that 
nature or aptitude was changed. It was not the new nature 
of Adam to seek his own interest supremely and to hate God." 
A foot-note is added to parry any thrust that might be made 
at him because of his use of the word nature. " I know," he 
says, " that the word nature, etymologically considered, belongs 
exclusively to physics ; but for want of another term, and 
prompted by a strong analogy, men have applied it to our 
moral constitution. And while it means this, to say that a 
change of nature must be a physical change, is only a pla} r 
upon words which involves a serious error." The theory pro- 
ceeds : " The constitution made with Adam was, that if he con- 
tinued obedient his posterity should be preserved holy ; that if 
he transgressed they should be abandoned to sin. In conse- 
quence of the fall they come into the world without the sancti- 
fying influence of God upon their hearts. The consequence is, 
they are left under the dominion of selfishness." 

Such is Dr. Griffin's view of the " origin of sin " and his 
meaning of " corrupt nature." The worst that can be said of 
any part of his theory is that some of it has no direct Scriptural 
testimony in its favor. But on the other hand it may be said 
that there is not only no Scripture contradicting it, but that it 
is, some of it, favored by fair inference from many passages of 
the Scriptures, and very much of it sustained, and he himself 
sustains it in a subsequent chapter, by a large array of Scrip- 
tural testimony. At all events his theory provides an unques- 
tionable necessity in the nature of moral beings, fallen and 
unfallen, for divine efficiency in order to their continuing in 
holiness if they are now holy, or, for their becoming holy, if 
they are sinful. If any one chooses to deny the need of divine 
efficiency in order to the restoration of the sinner to a state of 
holiness it is incumbent upon him to furnish a theory of the 



G-riffin on Divine Efficiency. 401 

origin of sin, and of a corrupt nature, so clearly in harmony with 
his denial, that it will show that the theory here proposed can- 
not be true. The difficulty of inventing and defending such a 
theory on any principles held by his opponents, is well shown, 
and strength given to his own theory by our author in another 
part of his work. - In the chapter on " Sinless Creatures De- 
pendent for Holiness," he asks, " if sinless creatures are not de- 
pendent for holiness [and so do not fall by the withdrawing of 
that upon which their holiness depends], how will you account 
for the fall of any ? and since some have fallen, what security 
is there that all will not apostatize ? While the heart is right 
and the mind free, proper motives, set clearly before the un- 
derstanding, will certainly awaken right affections. And temp- 
tations to sin while the heart is right, will instantly be rejected. 
How then can a holy being apostatize ? Not until the heart 
ceases to be inclined to fall in with the motives which move it 
before. That cessation cannot be produced by good motives, 
and before it takes place bad motives cannot operate. 

It cannot therefore be the effect of motives. It must result 
from some influence, or some withdrawment of influence, be- 
hind the scene. If it results from a positive influence, God 
must be the efficient cause of sin ; if it results from the with- 
drawment of an influence, the influence withdrawn was that 
which before inclined the heart to holy action ; and that is the 
very efficiency for which we plead. A change of heart, or of 
the causal influence which acts upon the heart, must therefore 
be the first thing in the fall of a holy being. While the heart 
is overflowing with supreme love to God, no temptation to 
transgress can gain the ear ; and no delusive speech can gain a 
moment's credence till faith in God has given way. You seek 
in vain for the origin of this change in motives bearing upon a 
heart warm with the love of God. The heart must first de- 
generate before the motives can touch it. The habit of love 
itself, or the propensity to love, must fail, before anything in 
the mind, or in outward temptations, can take hold of the heart 
to debase it. The first thing to be done is to dry up the foun- 
tain of that love, which no mere faculties or motives will 
ever accomplish. That can be done only by the withdrawment 
of the influence which produced it. Therefore if God has no 
efficient influence to withdraw, there is no accounting for the 

26 



402 Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 

fall of a holy being. The conclusion to which we come is, that 
the fall of Adam and of the angels furnishes strong proof that 
a divine influence was withdrawn which had supported their 
love. But influence or no influence, they fell. And if they 
had not been kept by divine efficiency, neither are the inhabit- 
ants of heaven now kept. And if some fell, thus unsupported, 
what can prevent them all from falling ? " 

Chapter V. deals with the doctrine of divine efficiency con- 
sidered as the cause of all holy exercises, as opposed to the self- 
determining power claimed by Arminians and not denied by 
New Haven Calvinists ; and shown not to be destructive of the 
freedom of moral agents, nor inconsistent with its exercise. 
" The real question lies," Dr. Griffin declares, " between the 
Calvinistic doctrine of divine efficiency, and the Arminian self- 
determining power." There is no middle ground between them ; 
unless you claim an absolute dominion in motives, and this was 
not claimed by those against whom mainly Dr. Griffin was in 
controversy. Those who did hold to this dominion by motives, 
then a new system, just beginning to assert itself, are noticed 
and answered in another part of the volume. So far as all his 
other opponents were concerned, and, as a moment's considera- 
tion will show, so far as these are concerned, the only alterna- 
tive is, divine efficiency, or the self -deter mining power, the cause 
of all holy exercises especially in fallen beings. By the self- 
determining power, Dr. Griffin says he means " no more than a 
power that actually turns from sin to God without divine 
efficiency in view of motives illumined by the Spirit, but not 
absolutely controlling." If the alternative of the self -determin- 
ing power be taken to account for the beginning of holy exer- 
cises in the mind of the sinner, then one involves himself in the 
dilemma, and in all the absurdities of asserting an effect with- 
out a cause. No man acts unless he is influenced or caused to 
act. But what causes a mind that hates God to begin to love 
Him ? If you say it causes itself to begin to love, or that it 
chooses to love, then we ask what causes him to cause himself 
to do this, or to choose to do it? If you say he chooses to 
choose, then you have the choice before the first choice, which 
the self-determining power always involves, and to which it 
always sooner or later comes, if the attempt is made to account 
for the origin of holy exercises by it. 



Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 403 

If, on the contrary, the alternative of divine efficiency be 
chosen to account for the cause of holy exercises in a sinner's 
mind, then it is said that since God, by direct influence on the 
soul, causes it to act in a particular direction, its freedom is de- 
stroyed, and it ceases to be an agent, at least a moral agent. 
To this it is replied that freedom is not destroyed so long as 
there is willingness. If a man acts willingly he acts of his 
own accord, acts freely, and is therefore not only an agent, but 
a moral agent. Dr. Griffin plants himself firmly on this ground 
and defies all who deny the doctrine of efficiency to show that 
because God makes his people willing in the day of his power, 
He therefore and thereby destroys their power to be willing. 
But if they are willing then they are free, and the alleged de- 
struction of their freedom, and so of their moral agency, is false. 
God does not make his own mind, nor his own exercises. Men 
do not make their own willingness or unwillingness, but if they 
are willing they act freely, if they are unwilling they freely 
refuse. 

As to sinful exercises, Dr. Griffin claims that we may ac- 
count for them, and that he does, " by the existence of self-love 
(essential to every nature above a block), turned into selfish- 
ness by the absence of love to God, and moved by motives of 
which the universe is full, but," he continues, " we cannot 
account for the holy exercises without going back beyond the 
motives in view of which they were called forth, to that Power 
which caused the mind to fall in with the motives : for before 
holiness is implanted in the heart, there is nothing answering 
to self-love in the other case, to which the motives are 
adapted." 

Chapter VI. is on the " Importance and Instrumentality of 
the Truth." The design is to show that those are in error who 
claim that the only power exerted by God in the regeneration 
and sanctification of sinners is exerted upon the truth, and not 
directly on the sinner's heart. Dr. Griffin admits, and glories 
in the admission, that " the eternal empire of Jehovah over a 
universe of moral agents, is sustained by nothing but truth, — 
is nothing but truth illustrated, and applied as motives to obe- 
dience, adoration, and praise." He will not be outdone, either 
in his reverence for the truth, or in exalting it as the great 
sanctifying instrumentality in the moral government of God. 



404 G-riffin on Divine Efficiency. 

But as the instrumentality of the truth is solely as motives, and 
the moral governor acts upon moral agents, as such, only by 
these, how can Dr. Griffin, who admits and claims all this, es- 
cape from what some of his opponents assert, that all the power 
that God puts forth in regenerating and sanctifying sinners is 
exerted on the truth as a motive power, and not directly on 
the sinner's heart. To this, Dr. Griffin, in various places, re- 
plies, by bringing forward what plays so conspicuous a part in 
his " Treatise on the Atonement : " God is not solely a moral 
governor, though He is this. Men and angels are not solely 
moral agents, though they are this. Besides moral governor, 
God is also absolute sovereign, " doing all his pleasure " in the 
army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and 
moral agents are subjects of this sovereign. In this sovereignty, 
lying back, so to speak, of moral government, and above it ; 
acting in and through, but not disturbing it, is the fountain of 
all gracious influences, the source of all sanctifying power. 
From this throne, the throne to which every suppliant looks for 
mercy, and to which every real prayer is addressed, God as an 
absolute sovereign graciously dispenses those influences in which 
is the cause of all holy exercises. These cause the heart to fall 
in with the truth presented as a motive. But for these the 
truth, as an instrumentality, would be forever powerless ; and 
the fact that by these God causes all holy exercises — but the 
agent puts them forth — is in harmony with the teachings of 
the Scriptures. Does not God give repentance ? but the sinner 
repents. Is not faith the gift of God ? but the believer exer- 
cises it. 

" It is the moral governor alone," says Dr. Griffin in another 
part of the book, " who says, ' What could have been done 
more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it ? ' The sover- 
eign efficient cause says, ' The king's heart is in the hand of 
the Lord as the rivers of water : He turneth it whithersoever 
He will.' The moral governor says, l The Lord is long-suffer- 
ing, not willing that any should perish, but that all should 
come to repentance.' The sovereign efficient cause says, ' There- 
fore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom 
He will He hardeneth.' " 

Chapter VII. is the Scriptural argument. In this chapter 
Dr. Griffin appears in favorable contrast with all his opponents. 



G-riffin on Divine Efficiency, 405 

While they theorize, and base their theories, for the most part, 
in all indeed wherein they greatly differ from him, on their 
own hypotheses, he, having theorized as boldly as they, then 
brings all his speculations to the test of God's Word, and plant- 
ing himself there, is not only ready to sacrifice even the evi- 
dence of all his senses and his consciousness to its authority, 
but with calm security bids defiance to all the logic and boasted 
common sense that a universe can marshal against him. It is 
this that gives his Essay on the Atonement its greatest charm. 
And although his array of Scripture is less master Ij here than 
in that work, yet it is sufficient here to place his main princi- 
ples beyond the reach of all fair question. Under ten different 
heads he groups together several hundred passages from the 
Bible, many bearing directly, all fairly, on the side of his doc- 
trine. This marshaling of proof texts, though coming in after 
the other arguments, in the book, one will not fail to see, was 
first in the author's mind. He began with the Bible as his 
centre, and made from it all his excursions into the region of 
speculation. And there are few of his speculations that do not 
readily return and link themselves again with this centre. 

Chapter VIII. is devoted to the proving that sinless creatures 
are dependent for holiness. The finest reasoning of the book 
is in this chapter. He here also presses his opponents most 
successfully with the consequences of their doctrine of a self- 
determining power. We have quoted one passage from it, and 
as there are no new principles brought forward, — none but 
such as have been stated in the preceding part of the work, — 
it is not necessary that we should dwell upon it. His opening 
paragraph will show how he applies these principles, and carries 
the doctrine of divine efficiency upward and makes it the sup- 
port and safety of the elect angels. " To me it appears as im- 
possible for God to make a being who shall act independently 
of Him, as to make a being who for the future shall be self- 
existent. If God could make a thing, whether a being or a 
power, that would exist and act, after He had withdrawn, He 
could make a thing which for the time to come would be self- 
existent ; and yet self -existence would be communicated ! A 
power derived from God to exist without God ! " 

" The same reasoning will prove that a created mind could 
not be made to go alone. Without the application of divine 



406 Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 

efficiency it may be reasonably bound, and therefore may have 
that power which is the basis of obligation ; but nothing can 
make it independent in its operations : for independent action 
implies independent attributes, and independent attributes im- 
ply independent being, and independent being would be com- 
municated self-existence." 

Chapter IX. is on God's power to prevent sin. The ques- 
tion is fairly met, and none of the consequences of the doctrine 
under discussion are denied. God could have prevented sin. 
If He had not withdrawn His sanctifying influences from holy 
angels, and from Adam, they would never have fallen. But 
these influences were not necessary to constitute them moral 
agents, nor to make holiness obligatory upon them. They 
were bound to love "God supremely ; and in their natural facul- 
ties they had all the capacity necessary to do it. The sanctify- 
ing influences that insured the continuance of these beings in 
holiness while they stood, and that now secures the holiness of 
angels, and all the saints, were purely gracious. They might 
therefore be withdrawn, and they were withdrawn, as they 
had been bestowed, sovereignly ; and their withdrawal was 
doing no injustice to those who had previously enjoyed them, 
because they were fully qualified and so bound to be holy with- 
out them. 

On the reason for the permission of sin, Dr. Griffin does not 
pretend to dogmatize. He stands with all true Calvinists, and 
is satisfied that the glory of God and the best interests of the 
universe, taken as a whole, are subserved by it. He rests in 
the words of the Psalmist which furnished Dr. Hopkins with a 
text for his famous discourses on this subject, and agrees sub- 
stantially with Dr. Hopkins in the doctrine and inferences 
which he draws from that text, u the wrath of man shall praise 
thee, and the remainder of wrath will He restrain." 

The tenth chapter is on the " Alleged Dominion of Motives, 
— a Distinct Theory." " The theory is, that God can mould 
the heart at pleasure by the mere influence of motives, whether 
they are adapted to its present temper or not." 

It is a sufficient reply to this theory to say that it neither 
rebuts the Scriptural proofs for divine efficiency, nor sustains 
itself by the Scriptures, and that it does not relieve the doctrine 
of sovereign efficiency of any of its difficulties, the purpose for 



Griffin on Divine Efficiency. 407 

which it was invented. If God can compel by motives, you 
have the compulsion which you object to as much by these as by 
efficiency. And if God can thus compel, you are exposed to 
the same unanswerable question that is urged against efficiency. 
Why does He not exert his power, and so multiply motives 
that none will be able to perish ? And why did He not so mul- 
tiply them that none could fall ? If continuance in holiness, 
and salvation from sinfulness, are both alike within the sovereign 
power of God, so that every holy being will throughout eternity 
feel and confess in songs of everlasting praises his utter depend- 
ence on God for his preservation from falling, he may better 
stand by the Bible and ascribe his preservation to the direct 
efficiency of God by gracious influence on his heart, than go 
beyond the Bible and contrary to it, and ascribe it to absolute 
and sovereign dominion by motives. 



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